August 17, 1904 Flood

Pinal Creek's biggest flood in recorded history took place in late afternoon Wednesday, August 17, 1904. Six people were killed and substantial, widespread structural damage was sustained. Later in 1904 after the flood, USGS field hydrologists estimated Pinal Creek's flow through Globe in the 1904 Flood was approx. 13,200 cubic feet per second.

As chance would have it, "The Arizona Silver Belt" (ASB) newspaper was due to publish its weekly edition the very next day after The 1904 Flood.  Luckily the ASB's printing facility was not damaged by the floodwaters.  The Editor described the six fatalities in often heart-wrenching narrative and then wrote at length about searches for the bodies.  Much detail was included about the extent of the high flow and the damage and dollar value of the resulting destruction.

Rather than attempt to summarize the article, we prefer to provide two links so you can read the full coverage and draw your own conclusions about the chaos and mayhem that Pinal Creek brought down upon Globe that fateful day.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80926876/globe-august-1904-flood/

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80927170/globe-august-1904-flood-part-two/

"The rain began to fall about 5:30 p. m. in a gentle shower, which in a few minutes increased to a veritable cloud burst. The water fell in sheets and continued without any abatement for three-quarters of an hour. Within fifteen of twenty minutes Pinal creek commenced to rise, and fed by streams from all the converging gulches, it was soon swelled to dangerous proportions. About 6 o’clock the water reached its highest point, and within a few minutes had destroyed thousands of dollars worth of property." 

In an amazing, uncanny coincidence, the famous Sanborn Map Company produced a pre-flood fire insurance map of Globe only a few days before the flood hit.  We used details from the ASB coverage and matched them to the map above to produce an approximate depiction of the spread of Pinal Creek's flow.

The red arrow points to the foot bridge across Pinal Creek.  It was 12 feet above the dry channel level (DCL).  The bridge was quickly destroyed and swept away.  The red line denotes the approx. extent of water to a depth of three feet.  The blue line denotes water generally in the 1-2 foot depth.

Source of the August 1904 Sanborn Fire Maps is here:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4334gm.g001541904/?st=gallery

NOTE: We will be adding additional information to this page soon.

Below are the pages from the USGS Annual 1904 summary of  all national floods.

The USGS Globe narrative begins on Page 118 from this source:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/0147/report.pdf