Local Scenery / The Big McAdoo Flood

sfp
2/1/2004

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McAdoo, PA. View from St. Mary's Slovak Cemetery. The double domed church at left is St. Michael's Byzantine (Greek Catholic) Church. The church on the right is St. Patrick's Irish. The St. Patrick's rectory is the mansard roofed house directly to the left of the church.
 Almost the same view as the picture at left.
McAdoo, PA, August, 1955: Hurricane Diane put the normally dry "Celebration Creek" well over its bounds and flooded out the business section in half the block of S. Tamaqua Street (later Kennedy Drive). "Condy" Givens ran the Gulf station at the corner of Tamaqua and Washington streets (behind the flooded truck).. The halfway covered "25" sign indicates the price of a gallon of gas in front of the Sheeto Bros. ESSO gas station.
 Forty eight years later: Almost the same view as the left hand picture, July, 2003, a view to the southwest. Now the main street is South Kennedy Drive (Rte. 309) and there is very little business district remaining in town. Celebration Creek, headwaters of Catawissa Creek, normally passed through the center of town in a tunnel, emerging from behind the dark colored brick building at right. Givens' gas station, now a Mobil, is a gas-station-convenience-store combo, not run by Givens. Sheeto's ESSO station has become "La Regina", a pizza restaurant run by a Neapolitan. The signpost appears to be the same one used by the gas station.

View of the same location shown directly above at right, February, 2002, but looking directly opposite, to the northeast from the convenience store. Doral cigarettes are selling at $2.29 the pack and the price of gasoline has risen accordingly. The Payer house is the large one with the black roof in the middle of the block

 
Another picture of the 1955 flood, courtesy of Jimmy Scarpati. Looking west on Sherman St. from Bill Tihansky's garage. Bavolack's store is at right center on Tamaqua St. See others from Scarpati. He got this pic from Phil Vinczi.

 


Bavolack's Store at the corner of Tamaqua and Sherman Sts.
Courtesy of Rosemary (Contrady) Clayton (2004)


Sheeto's ESSO Service Station diagonally across Tamaqua St. from Bavolack's.
Courtesy of Rosemary (Contrady) Clayton (2004)