The front page from The Times on Oct. 20, 1914. (File Photo)

Microfilm of old newspapers can provide a treasure trove of forgotten and remarkable stories. In 2014 I took a large look back at some of the past big stories published in The Marietta Times. We ran 365 historical front pages from The Times over the course of a year. Some of the pages were easy to pick because the stories printed on them are part of our collective national memory. Not all dates on the calendar have earth shattering stories occur on them, so some dates required a little work to find something interesting, both locally and nationally. This required scrolling through some years and months that I thought might be interesting, and sometimes I would find a page while looking for something else. One such date was Oct. 20, 1914.

The previous year had been devastating for the area when the worst flood ever recorded swept through the area in the spring of 1913. The devastating flood in March caused widespread damage up and down the valley. Reportedly no one died in Marietta from the flood. The aftermath would be dealt with for years as the area suffered heavy damage to buildings, bridges and dams. The Muskingum lost all its bridges between Marietta and Zanesville and the lock and dam structures were damaged as well.

The headline in the Oct. 20 paper stopped me in my tracks. “SEVEN MEN DROWN IN MUSKINGUM RIVER — TWO RESCUED.”

One of those dams damaged was the one at Beverly. The flood had washed out the center of the dam. That following year, nine men were working from a flat boat – basically a giant wood box, connected to the riverbank and the dam by a cable. Overloaded with wet timbers, the boat was sitting very low in the water when the Muskingum River began to flow over the side of the craft. Most of the workers were from Turkey and could not swim and were swiftly swept over the dam.

One of the workers clung to a corner of the boat remained above water and the sole swimmer in the group, an American laborer, swam to a sand bar where he could stand up. A hero in a boat soon began a daring rescue. Jim Kendall of Beverly was in a boat in the canal that bypasses the dam. He exited the canal and then intentionally took his boat over the dam to rescue the man on the sandbar.

John Stevens of Beverly died with the six men from Turkey. The Times reported that he had been daring as a child and grew up at the Washington County Children’s Home. He had been living along the river in a camp prior to the accident. The entire area where the accident occurred still exists and looks pretty much as it did in 1913, so it is easy to imagine what it must have been like on that chaotic day.

Old newspapers, including The Times, provide a raw glimpse into moments of time in our past. The Times has published around 40,000 editions since it was first printed in 1864. Microfilm of nearly all those editions is available at both The Washington County Public Library and at Marietta College’s Special Collections located in the Legacy Library. Past editions can frequently give you a view of our area that has been forgotten by most.

Art Smith can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com. His column appears on Saturdays.