by Murrel Bland
Irene Gonzalez said she remembers the flood of 1951 as if it were yesterday. She recalled having to leave her family’s three-room home in the lower Argentine community at 641 S. Second St. because of rising waters.
Gonzalez was one of four persons who told of their memories of the flood at a quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society Sunday, June 26, at the Wyandotte County Museum, Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. About 75 persons attended.
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the 1951 flood. The worst day of the flood was July 13, called “Black Friday.”
Gonzalez recalled being separated from her parents, searching for them by walking from the Twelfth Street Bridge to the Seventh Street Bridge. She also told of spending time in Memorial Hall that was converted into an emergency shelter. Her father was out of a job as he worked for Swift and Company, which was severely damaged by floodwaters.
Manuel Reyes, the publisher of the Dos Mundos newspaper, said he lived at Fifth Street and Shawnee Road in the Armourdale community. He was 14 years old in 1951. He recalled that he lost his pet dog and goldfish in the flood.
Loren Taylor, a lawyer and Wyandotte County historian, said he grew up as a third generation resident of Armourdale. He said the flood displaced some 30,000 persons. He told of life in “Trailer City” which was temporary housing at 24th Street and Steele Avenue, the present site of Harmon High School.
Taylor, who was 15 when the flood hit, said he was forced to go to work as his family had little money. His first job was working at Crown Drug Company on Minnesota Avenue. He said it was during this period that he developed a close friendship with two persons who would later become police chiefs—Allen Myers and Tom Dailey and another person, Mike Dailey (Tom’s brother), who would become Wyandotte County Sheriff. Taylor would later become legal adviser for the Police Department. They were all Armourdale residents.
Bundy Jenkins said Mark Twain probably said it best. Twain wrote in his book “Roughing It,” that if it rains enough, it will flood.
That was certainly the case in 1951. Jenkins is a retired public school teacher and a life-long resident of Armourdale—except when he served in the U.S. Army including Vietnam. Jenkins is serving his seventh consecutive term as a member of the Kaw Valley Drainage Board.
Jenkins recalls that the Procter and Gamble plant in Armourdale was down only for 11 days during the flood; it was producing soap by July 24, 1951.
Jenkins said that four upstream reservoirs were built to control flood waters—Tuttle Creek, Milford, Clinton and Perry. He said there was a threat in 1993 as the Kaw River was within about 1.5 feet below flood stage. Armourdale was evacuated as a precaution.
Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is a member of the Wyandotte County Historical Society board of directors.