Paducah by John E.L. Robertson

Author:John E.L. Robertson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2011-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

The great snow in the winter of 1917 forced Hank Brothers Hardware to pile the excess powder on the curb. (Courtesy Jimmy Hank.)

The Ohio Valley suffered greatly in 1937, but the brunt of that flood was felt in Paducah. The average rainfall for Kentucky was 15.37 inches; for Paducah in the same period, the average was 17.53.

January 1937 opened with rain that continued for two weeks, but Paducahans did not think it ominous. Bobby Marshall, wife of Dr. T.J. Marshall, kept a record of her experiences during the flood. She recalled, “occasionally we would hear someone say that the river was very high, but Paducah had always been high and dry when other cities and towns on the Ohio and Tennessee were flooded, we felt no uneasiness.” Instead, citizens of Paducah basked in the success of the city during the past year. City Manager L.V. Bean remarked on January 3, “I think we have just closed a most satisfactory year.” Not until January 10 did people begin to take notice of the rising water. (On January 7, the paper noted that Paducah needed to raise matching funds to retain the Work Projects Administration [WPA] projects in the area. In 1936, 500 people worked for the WPA in the Paducah area. At the time, threats of flooding were not noted. The future year looked promising. On January 17, an increase in building was reported.)

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