Rechanneling river discouraged yearly floods

Figurative floods, that is.

However, actual floods once plagued Athens on a yearly basis, drowning low parts of the city and campus in nearly 30 feet of water at times. The greatest of these floods occurred in 1907 when the Hocking River crested at 26 feet 7 inches, 10 feet above flood stage.

The 1940s through the 1960s also saw their fair share of deep waters, sparking excitement, worry and confusion in students and residents alike.

The inhabitants of Athens could almost count on floods in those days.

But not everyone viewed the rise of the Hocking River with disdain. Reporters from The Post punctuated their articles with sarcastic quips. One headline joked, “New OU Aquarium”:

“Originally planned as a baseball field, the Ohio University aquarium, located just south of President Street bridge, is one of the most popular attractions of the school this spring,” the 1940 article read, mocking that April’s flood.

Despite the almost regular yearly watery visitation, OU and the city struggled for years with plans to thwart the damage caused by floods. Proposals for levees and dams predicted costs in the millions, at a time when a million dollars was a hefty chunk of change.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began surveys in 1940 to develop a solution to the Hocking River quagmire, but World War II started, stymieing their efforts according to a 1962 edition of The Post.

Their plan involved rerouting the Hocking River, which ran through the present day campus through the OU golf course, under the Richland Bridge and between West Green and West Union Street.

In John C. Baker’s oral history, the revered president of OU from 1945 to 1961 said he thought re-channelization would be impossible.

“I’m not going to live long enough to see this done,” he predicted. “We’ll never possibly do it.”

Baker was no longer president for the worst floods of the 1960s.

His successor, President Vernon R. Alden, in his own oral history said he was unaware of plans to move the river when he first arrived.  He even said the river looked “kind of nice.”

However, upon seeing the damage caused by the floods of the 1960s, Alden became more optimistic about prevention than his predecessor.

“After our first flood, I discovered how completely the university was shut down during that period of time,” Alden said. “I realized something had to be done, and I began to push a lot of people on the subject.”

Throughout the 1960s as Alden kept up the pressure, OU students continued their battles with submerged lower levels of dormitories, sodden belongings and challenging walks to class. Still, many treated the floods as mild nuisances rather than disasters.

A The Post article in 1964 quoted an unnamed underclassman faced with flood precautions as stating, “Evacuation sounds kind of exciting, but I’ve got too many things to do right now.”

The waters swallowed whole portions of campus, covering Peden Stadium’s  football field and rising to the lower balconies of what would become Riverpark Towers. Gymnasium floors warped and buckled under the turbid overflows of the Hocking.

Damage from the floods ranged throughout the years. One 1964 article of The Post placed damage to the Athens area at approximately $610,000.

In March of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson pledged expedited solutions to then Gov. James R. Rhodes. Many Athenians thought this to be the beginning of the end for the Hocking River’s annual rages.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers once again examined the area for possible plans of action. According to another Post article from October 1964, officials from the city and university settled on a long-term plan of rechanneling the river.

“The Hocking River will be rechanneled to avoid the West Green,” the article read. “Under flood-protection plans, the river would pass behind Peden Stadium. It will be guarded by a 16.5 foot high levee on one side and hills on the other.”

In November of that year, Athens City Council voted unanimously to support rechanneling the river, but they refused the use of levees for fear of limiting the city’s southward expansion.

Nearly three more years passed until officials set a definite date for rechanneling of five and a half miles of the river, with some of that distance near campus relocated entirely. Even then, budget cuts delayed operations.

By April 1969, the roughly $10 million project was underway, shortening the river by almost 1,400 feet. Plans for construction also included the erection of two bridges to handle the traffic of nearby highways.

With the rerouting in progress, OU was predicted to be flood free after the spring of 1970.

President Alden reflected on the process in his oral history, recounting the lengthy ordeal that it became.

“We began to work on it very early in my administration, but such projects take time, so it was only in my last year that we were able to accomplish moving the river,” he wrote. “I’m sure the community appreciates what a major contribution the university made in pushing through that project.”

Indeed, since then OU and Athens have seen only glimpses of its annual watery guest, often exacerbated by sediment accumulating in the “new” river channel. But no longer do regular floods cause thousands (or millions) of dollars of damage on the town. The regular current floods, those of masses of people descending on the community, instead bring with them an economic boom.

And floods of money are always appreciated.

Editor’s note: The Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections in the Ohio University Vernon R. Alden Library provided all historical articles and documents for this article.