The incredible story of a flood of near-biblical proportions -- its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America's natural-disaster policies for the next century. The storm began March 23, 1913, with a series of tornadoes that killed 150 people and injured 400. Then the freezing rains started and the flooding began. It continued for days. Some people drowned in their attics, others on the roads when they tried to flee. It was the nation's most widespread flood ever—more than 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and millions were left homeless. The destruction extended far beyond the Ohio valley to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. Fourteen states in all, and every major and minor river east of the Mississippi. In the aftermath, flaws in America's natural disaster response system were exposed, echoing today's outrage over Katrina. People demanded change. Laws were passed, and dams were built. Teams of experts vowed to develop flood control techniques for the region and stop flooding for good. So far those efforts have succeeded. It is estimated that in the Miami Valley alone, nearly 2,000 floods have been prevented, and the same methods have been used as a model for flood control nationwide and around the world.

Indiana suffered enormous losses in the Great Flood of 1913, yet this disaster is largely forgotten. The combined tornado and flood barreled through Terre Haute, killing more than twenty. In Peru, 114 miles away, the circus lost most of its animals in the storm. At the southwestern corner of the state, a sea of water, as local papers put it, washed over Evansville, turning streets into canals. In the capital, levee failures left hundreds homeless and vulnerable to disease and famine. Pulling from archival photographs, newspapers and local accounts, Dr. Nancy M. Germano shares stories from across the state to reveal how Indiana's history of settlement and development contributed to one of the state's worst disasters.

From the enigmatic Moundbuilders who left their mark in the heart of the Buckeye State to the National Road and Ohio Canal that drew an influx of settlers to the burgeoning capital, Columbus blossomed into an industrial hub that became the world's largest producer of buggies. The Arch City--with its illuminated streetcar arches curving gracefully through downtown--struggled through social and political unrest to thrive on its economic success and grow into a diversified capital city.

Columbus, Ohio: Two Centuries of Business and Environmental Change examines how a major midwestern city developed economically, spatially, and socially, and what the environmental consequences have been, from its founding in 1812 to near the present day. The book analyzes Columbus's evolution from an isolated frontier village to a modern metropolis, one of the few thriving cities in the Midwest. No single factor explains the history of Columbus, but the implementation of certain water-use and land-use policies, and interactions among those policies, reveal much about the success of the city. Precisely because they lived in a midsize, midwestern city, Columbus residents could learn from the earlier experiences of their counterparts in older, larger coastal metropolises, and then go beyond them. Not having large sunk costs in pre-existing water systems, Columbus residents could, for instance, develop new, world-class, state-of-the-art methods for treating water and sewage, steps essential for urban expansion. Columbus, Ohio explores how city residents approached urban challenges-especially economic and environmental ones-and how they solved them. Columbus, Ohio: Two Centuries of Business and Environmental Change concludes that scholars and policy makers need to pay much more attention to environmental issues in the shaping of cities, and that they need to look more closely at what midwestern metropolises accomplished, as opposed to simply examining coastal cities.

The nineteenth century was the golden age of the circus in Ohio. Before the Ringling brothers became synonymous with the American circus, Cincinnati's John Robinson and the Sells brothers of Columbus wowed audiences with stunning equestrian feats and aerial exploits. For good measure, the Sells brothers threw in a sharpshooting show with a young Ohio woman by the name of Annie Oakley. The Walter L. Main Circus of Geneva and a number of smaller shows presented their own unique spectacles with exotic animals and daring acrobats. But for all the fun and games, Ohio's circus industry was serious business. As competition intensified, advertising wars erupted and acquisitions began. Eventually, Ringling Brothers swallowed many of these circuses one by one, and they dropped out of memory. Author Conrade C. Hinds brings this fascinating piece of Ohio show business back into the spotlight.