Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Silver Creek rises in Scott County, Indiana, and flows 34 miles before flowing into the Ohio
River. It got its name from a legend that a silver treasure was hidden nearby. In 1937, the
creek overflowed its banks and immersed a bridge carrying the tracks of the Louisville and
Southern Indiana Traction Company. The company ran an interurban rail line that connec-
ted Louisville, Jeffersonville, and New Albany.
In a graphic example of the enormous power of the 1937 flood, the raging floodwaters
swept up this organ from some family's parlor, carried it downstream, perhaps for miles,
and then deposited it in this field on a farm near Mount Vernon, Indiana. This dramatic
photograph is the work of the Farm Security Administration's Russell Lee, who took many
photographs of the flood's aftermath in Indiana and Illinois. (Courtesy the Library of Con-
gress.)
