The flooding caused by the recent storms brings to mind high water of past times. The Tombigbee Valley has a long history of high water and flooding. The term “high water” has carried both good and bad news. Some of the Tombigbee floods have been devastating, even washing away almost entire towns.
However, “high water” also opened the river for steamboat traffic and allowed log rafts to be floated to sawmills along the upper reaches of the river. A fully loaded large steamboat coming up river from Mobile needed a water level on the Columbus river gage of six feet for travel to Columbus, 12 feet for Aberdeen and 20 feet for Fulton.
The most devastating recorded flood on the Upper Tombigbee was known as “the Great Freshet of 1847.” Almost the entire town of Colbert (just south of Barton Ferry in Clay County) and much of the towns of West Port and Nashville in Lowndes County were washed away. In order to save cotton at the West Port warehouse, the steamer Avalanche sailed overland around the west end of the covered wooden Tombigbee bridge at Columbus. The new Tenn-Tom channel that cut old Highway 82 and formed the Island cut through the middle of old West Port.
A later flood carried a different story line. The Columbus Democrat reported on January 27, 1875, that: “The rain on Saturday afternoon and night was one of the heaviest we have ever been visited with. All the creeks in the county, and especially those to the west of us, were very much swollen. The river during Saturday night rose 4 1/2 feet. It is now in good boating condition.”
March 1888, brought another flood to Columbus. The New York Tribune reported; “The Tombigbee River at Columbus, Miss., is still rising and is only eighteen inches below high water mark. The lower portions of the city have been abandoned.” The Wichita Kansas Eagle also reported on the Tombigbee flood stating that waters were “three feet deep in the houses” located in the lower part of Columbus. Four years later another devastating flood raged through the Tombigbee River Valley.
It is the flood of 1892 that is considered the benchmark crest. The Tombigbee crested at Columbus on April 8, 1892, at 42.6 feet on the Columbus gage. Flood stage before the Tenn-Tom Waterway was constructed was considered to be 29 feet at Columbus. The present day normal river level at downtown Columbus would be about six feet on the old gage. Flood waters were said to have reached to what is now the parking lot across Main Street from Harvey’s Restaurant.
The flood of 1892 cut off all roads leading to Columbus and severely damaged the railroads, washing out several railroad trestles. Washouts created two lakes that still exist on what is now the island across from Columbus. The flooded Tombigbee backed up the Luxapallia until it reached the south east part of Mississippi University for Women campus and Palmer Children’s Home. Fifteen lives were lost at Columbus including three men who were in a small skiff rescuing people trapped on roofs and in trees. The rescuers boat got caught in swift current and overturned. The three unnamed heroes were swept away and drowned.
Again in March of 1906, the Tombigbee rose out of its banks but rather than destruction the Aberdeen Weekly reported: “The recent rains above Aberdeen have produced a considerable use in the Tombigbee and afforded the first sufficient high water in the river for floating saw stocks that we had had in many months, and the opportunity has been improved by the loggers on the upper river who are arriving daily with fine timber rafts for the Berg saw mills.” S.H. Berg’s saw mill and brick plant was located at Aberdeen on the west bank of the Tombigbee just below Matubbee Creek.
Depending on just how high the water was, high water on the Tombigbee was either a blessing or a curse.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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