See the traveling exhibit at these locations:

July 11 to July 15 – Madeline L. Olewine Memorial Library
July 18 to July 22 – Elizabethville Area Library
July 25 to July 29 – Kline Library
August 1 to August 5 – Northern Dauphin Library
August 8 to August 12 – East Shore Area Library
August 15 to August 19 – William H. & Marion C. Alexander Family Library
August 22 to August 26 – Johnson Memorial Library

Watch community members tell their Hurricane Agnes stories

Check out The Library’s Local History Collection materials about Hurricane Agnes.
 

Tell us about other materials that you think we should add to this collection.

Front Street in Wormleysburg looking toward the Susquehanna River, just north of the Walnut Street Bridge. (Allied Pix, The Patriot-News) Hurricane Agnes, 1972

For years, I have listened to nostalgic stories about Lykens Valley and the entertainment/industry that used to abound.  For example, in Lykens there was a movie theatre, bowling alley, two swimming pools and a multitude of shops and restaurants, it was a thriving destination location.  Anything you wanted or needed you could pretty much find without having to leave the valley; that was until Hurricane Agnes descended in June of 1972.  Several of the small towns within the Lykens Valley became wastelands of destruction almost overnight.  Gone were most all of Lykens small businesses and entertainment venues, because of its unique location within the floodplain.

Farther down the valley, near the Susquehanna River, Millersburg also suffered major destruction with the collapse of the Millersburg Bridge on state route 147 that spanned the Wiconisco Creek.  The dance pavilion that sat on the on edge of the Susquehanna was also washed away due to rising river waters.

I was offered the opportunity to collaborate on a project that commemorates, fifty years later, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Agnes.

The project consists of researched photographs that were taken either during and directly after Hurricane Agnes and photographs of the same locations, fifty years later.  Each set of photographs highlight: what has survived, what was rebuilt and what has been lost to history.

This project has given me an appreciation for what has survived within the Lykens Valley, but left me envious of the fun and adventures that were to be had pre-Hurricane Agnes.