Feel Free to Correct Us

This photo below shows the damage Hurricane Diane inflicted on the Delware, Lackawanna, and Western railroad tracks near Nay Aug Park. Many historians believe this was the death knell for the DL&W. Herein lies an interesting lesson. When this collection first went live, we erroneously stated that this was the Erie-Lackawanna right-of-way. A user of our collection pointed out that the merger between the DL&W and the Erie post-dated Hurricane Diane. We verified that the merger did indeed occur 1960, five years after the flood, so the information has been corrected. When we enter metadata for items in our collection, we work with the best information we have available at the time, but sometimes it is incomplete or incorrect so, if you know something we don't, feel free to correct us either by commenting on a blog post, commenting in the archives itself, or by sending an email to lvda@albright.org. We really appreciate your input.

Richter Avenue Flooding

 

 

The above picture is one of the many photos that can be found in the Hurricane Diane collection on the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives. This photo scanned from the collection of James Keenan shows the damage the Roaring Brook did to the area and especially the houses on Richter Avenue.  In the photo above, the water is flowing down what is left of the street.

WDAU-TV Footage of Hurricane Diane

Anyone who grew up in Scranton in the 1950s through the 1970s knows that WDAU-TV (Channel 22) was "the Scranton station" and WBRE-TV (Channel 28) was the "Wilkes-Barre station" until mergers and acquistions changed the landscape of the local TV market. Footage from WDAU-TV's nightly news program is stored in the basement of the WBRE building in Wilkes-Barre and is a tresure trove of mid-20th Century local history. Thanks to Jack Scanella, a retried WDAU photographer who maintains an index to the footage, and Tom Gregory, a current WBRE-TV photographer, we were able to find the reels pertaining to Hurricane Diane and have them digitized. This haunting, soundless footage records the devastion wrought by Diane in and around the Scranton area.

Hurricane Diane is now ONLINE!!

The Hurricane Diane collection is now available on the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives website. The library is very excited about this collection because it contains video histories, recorded histories, and photos from our community and also from some of our original partners, which includes the Lackawanna Historical Society and Steamtown National Historic Site. The photo above is one of the many photos in this collection.  You will find 83 items which includes actual TV footage of the flood. Check it out!!

Does anyone know his story?

 



 

 

The photo above is Civil War veteran Samuel N. Callender in his Ezra Griffin Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post 139 uniform.

 

I have always been interested in the stories behind these pictures and was wondering if anyone knows his story.  Where did he live? Where did he serve in the Civil War? According to one source he lived in Scranton in 1900, but if you can verify this, please comment as I am sure other reader's will be as interested as myself. 

New Collections Scheduled for Release

Two new LVDA collections are scheduled for release in the coming months. First, in October, is Rising Waters: The Devastation and Aftermath of Hurricane Diane which will feature photographs, articles, video interviews, and TV footage from the flood that devasted Northeastern Pennsylvania in August 1955. Then, in January of 2013, we have The History of the Community Medical Center which will contains photographs, scrapbooks, and other historical information from this storied health care provider.

A View of Reference

As a Reference Librarian I always love to look at old pictures of public library Reference Departments.  In this case its my own.  This photo comes from the History of the Scranton Public Library archive.  Last week there was a post of the circulation desk and this week a look at the Scranton Public Library Reference Room.  Based on the style of hat the woman is wearing I believe we may be looking at the 1920s or early 30s.  I would like to point out that while the chairs aren't here anymore one of the tables can still be found in the department.  If you are in Scranton or live in the area please come into the library its an architectural gem!!