PARKERSBURG — The Flood of 1913 was one of the most destructive floods to ever hit the Mid-Ohio Valley.

The flood stands out in the Mid-Ohio Valley for causing millions of dollars in damage and was the highest in recorded history.

The flood caught many by surprise.

”They knew it was going to be bad but didn’t know it was going to be this bad,” Local historian Jeff Little had said in a 2013 interview.

The river crested at 58.9 feet on March 29, 1913, exceeding the anticipated levels by residents and river watchers and became the worst flood in Parkersburg history, Little had said.

The Beechwood and Riverside areas were hardest hit by the flooding. A reporter for The Parkersburg Sentinel, who climbed atop the Union Trust Building, reported all of Beechwood and Riverside were under water.

Many homes were affected by the flood, including those of prominent citizens, such as the house of the late Sen. Johnson Camden, former Gov. A.B. White and Mayor Allen Murdoch.

Samuel Whitlatch was reported as the first fatality of the flood when he fell out of a skiff on Juliana Street below Third Street and drowned. Newspapers also reported another man perished as a result of the flood.

In addition to the flood, Little had said officials had to battle a fire that destroyed a city block. The fire started in the Miller Furniture building but spread to the C.C. Martin’s Wholesale House, Miller Furnature and Amicon Produce.

According to newspaper accounts, the Star Grocery, C. Nelly Co. Wholesale Grocer, Shattuck & Jackson, the Parkersburg Mill and Parkersburg Ice and Coal were among the businesses that suffered the most damage in the flood.

Four banks were forced to relocate.

The flood waters left the city isolated for days without telephone, telegraph or rail service.

”In every direction in which one may look homes, barns and other buildings are toppled over and the streets are jammed with buildings and other debris that will require sometime to move,” according to a story in the Parkersburg Dispatch-News at the time of the flood.

The paper’s staff was forced from their offices and were printing one-page sheet on March 30, 1913, detailing the flood and efforts to provide and re-establish services.

There was a concern about disease breaking out. People were told not to drink from wells that could have been affected by the flood.

Hundreds were without shelter and were housed temporarily at Tabernacle building and M.E. Church.

Little had said the city received no federal aid. The National Guard was summonded for assistance.

Businesses and residents provided their own relief, residents raised thousands of dollars in a matter of hours to provide food, water and coffee.

The Salvation Army provided hot soup and coffee to 15,000 workers during the flood, according to newspaper accounts.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the town of Belleville in southern Wood County was a boomtown, thriving due to its location on the bank of the Ohio River, a major travel artery for both business, industry and pleasure, according to Nadine Hoffman, a lifelong Belleville resident and local historian, in a 2013 interview.

“Prior to the (1913) flood, (Belleville) was a booming town,” Hoffman had said.

At the time of the March 1913 flood which devastated the region, Hoffman said Belleville had three hotels — ranging from 15-17 rooms each “which was big for that time,” Hoffman said — and four or five large stores.”

The town had a lawyer, a dentist, a barber and “lots and lots of things that Parkersburg had,” she had said.

The Ohio River brought people through the region from the rest of the country.

“And then, the river destroyed Belleville,” Hoffman had said. ”The 1913 flood took out so many of the homes and the businesses and everything.

”A few built back, but they didn’t really prosper. It was the demise of Belleville, the ’13 flood.”

Hoffman said a few homes, like the Hupp, Crook and Spencer houses, still stand today, but most of what was Belleville at the time of the flood is gone and many homes in that area have been built since that time.

A newspaper clipping from the April 2, 1913, edition of the Parkersburg Dispatch-News, described the situation in Belleville a couple of days after the flood occurred.

“George Ross, of the U.S. Engineer’s department at Dam 20, who was in this city yesterday told of the loss at Belleville,” the article said. ”Thirteen of 28 houses in the town were washed out.

”The building loss is: Dr. Owing’s residence, store and warehouse; Mitchell Brothers, warehouse; the residences of Lou Pennybaker, A.C. Lowers, Herbet Parker, and Geo. Arnold. The Ohio River station and the offices of Dr. Herbert Quillan and Dr. Claude Keever were also swept away. The Methodist Church was swept from its foundation, as was also the Stealey hotel. Several barns and buildings were washed away.”

This flood is what prompted the City of Parkersburg to build the floodwall in 1950. Measurements from this flood were used to determine the height of the wall.

Also, a series of locks and dams were built throughout the region’s waterways in the 1960s to better control water flow and potential areas of flooding.

Upstream, the conflence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers would eventually surge to nearly 23 feet above flood stage.

In Marietta, 8-10 inches of rain fell within a four-day period, culminating in a peak flood level of nearly 59-feet. Houses were knocked off their foundations. Rushing waterswashed the Putnam and B&O Railroad Bridges into the Muskingum River.

The rivers kept rising in the city until March 29, when the flood finally crested at 58.7 feet. By then the waters covered virtually all of downtown and the lower section f the Harmar District, as well as residential areas on the east side of the Muskingum between Front and Fourth streets. All or portions of Pike, Greene, Bulter, Putnam, Scammel and Washington streets were also submerged.

The Marietta Daily Times reported the extent of the flooding.

”All of Front Street was inundated; Second with the exception of a bit between Washington and Montgomery,” the article said. ”Third as far north as the First Methodist Church, and the lower side of the street to a point further north than that. Fourth to Scammel and further north on the west side, all of the bottomsof the fairgrounds, all of the east end…, and all of the West Side.”

Martial law was declared in the city by the Seventh Regiment Military District Commander Col. Harry Knox who was incharge of National Guard troops dispatched to the city.

By March 30, Marietta Mayor Charles F. Leeper had issued orders to city police and National Guard units to “shoot to killanyone found looting or attempting to steal anywhere in the city.,” according to an article in the Register Leader.

The flood cause massive damage throughout this region and beyond.

”The destruction was unimaginable,” said Lynne Sturtevant, who researched the 1913 flood for her book, “Haunted Marietta.”

”It was Easter weekend when the bad weather started with back-to-back storms,” she said. ”Wind and rain lashed not only this area, but the entire state.

”Everyone thinks the 1913 flood was just a local event, but that is not true.

”And people died from floods in cities like Columbus and Dayton.”