A Relative Remembers: One Man’s Pilgrimage to the Scene of the Davis Cabins Tragedy

from Pocono Living Magazine Oct/Nov 2021

A RELATIVE REMEMBERS

ONE MAN’S PILGRIMAGE TO THE SCENE OF THE DAVIS CABINS TRAGEDY

By Tom Parrish with edits by John Moore

This feature is a sequel to “The Flood of “55” story which ran in our August/September issue of Pocono Living Magazine. A story of 37 children who perished in a place called “The Davis Cabins” along the Brodhead’s Creek in Stroudsburg, Pa.

Tom Parrish, a 68-year-old retired bus operator from Savannah, Ga., visited Pinebrook Park north of Stroudsburg last summer. He went there to pay his respects to family members who were among the nearly 40 killed when the 1955 flood destroyed the Davis Cabins that once occupied the site. Here is his report:

Some recall it was a Boy Scout camp that got washed away in the Flood of ‘55 in Stroudsburg. It wasn’t. It was Davis Cabins, or Davis Camp as the press preferred.

Leon Davis was a retired Baptist minister who rented out cabins and a few Quonset huts to church groups on land along Brodhead Creek. Davis and his wife lived on the premises in what was known as the Clubhouse, or Big House. The groups were attending the nearby Pinebrook Bible Conference and Retreat Center, then known just as Percy’s.

Percy Crawford was a world-renowned evangelist in the era of radio. His guests at Pinebrook included the Reverend Billy Graham, gospel singer George Beverly Shea and others. Percy’s attracted all the most popular Christian speakers and musical acts of the time.

A small bridge straddled the Brodhead Creek and connected the Davis Cabins with Pinebrook. The Brodhead was one of the premier trout streams in the country; it separates Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg. Just a “crick” only 30 feet across on a normal day, it swelled to 300 yards wide at the peak of the 1955 flood.

Continued on page 16

← No collection of images of the flood of 1955 in the Stroudsburgs would be complete without a photo showing the separated trusses of the “interboro bridge” on opposite shores of Brodhead Creek. There were many such photos and this one appeared in the Harrisburg Evening News.

↑ The second most-direct crossing of Brodhead Creek between Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg is via Stokes

Mill. (Mill Creek Road today.) The bridge here, too, was washed out in 1955 but it was the first “interboro” route restored after the flood.

↑ Flooding of Bushkill and

Little Bushkill Creeks caused the collapse of the Rt. 209 bridge, looking south from Pike into Monroe County. (MSTHC archives)

→ The Delaware Water Gap train station has been surrounded by flood waters before and since 1955, but the deepest inundation occurred in

August of that year. (from

Lackawanna Flood Story)

↑ Three bridges along Rt. 611 between Bartonsville and Swiftwater were among those destroyed in Pocono

Township as a result of flooding from Pocono and Swiftwater Creeks.

↑ Flash flooding along creeks and streams was the cause of most sudden deaths. Not long after, the sheer volume of water in the Delaware River attained unprecedented depth such that some bungalows floated away and were able to squeeze beneath the Delaware Water Gap toll bridge. (DWGNRA archives)

→ Many bridges were washed out by Pocono

Creek, interrupting traffic for example on West Main St. (Rt. 209), Stroudsburg.

“When all hell burst loose upriver, the Brodhead Creek rose 25 feet in 15 minutes. A wall of water 30 feet high came roaring downstream, and, like a bulldozer, it swept away the Davis Cabins.”

↑ Distance from the raging Paradise Creek was crucial. In the Henryville area along Rt. 191 (then

Rt. 90), the destructive swath was not wide but devastating near the town’s two intersections.

Debris backed up and protected the bridge at

Brown’s Hill Road but caused a large section of its southern approach to wash away (top). The bottom photo shows the receded creek, upper left, and its narrow path of havoc which engulfed

“The Lighthouse” but did not effect the Henryville

House, lower right.

SHOP NEW. SHOP VINTAGE. SHOP LOCAL.

It’s not just a day of shopping here in the Pocono Mountains—it’s an experience. Wander our historic streets. Explore our art galleries. Find unique local goods. And stop for a bite at one of our top-rated neighborhood restaurants along the way. Discover all of our shopping and sights now at PoconoMountains.com.

→ Among bridges washed out by Brodhead Creek were two that were side by side in the Minisink

Hills area. Upstream was a railroad bridge and next to it was a road bridge. The railroad bridge was rebuilt in less than a month and a few years later a bridge for Rt. I-80 was constructed in this area. (from Lackawanna Flood Story)

↑ Flood waters arranged automobiles in many odd positions: tilted against buildings, trees, and each other; washed into gullies; driven off bridges that had collapsed; floated miles from where they last were; even into a swimming pool.

↑ Effected by flooding in 1955 was Coates Board & Carton Co., known today as WestRock and generically as “the paper mill”, in the Minisink Hills area. In addition to surrounding the main building, the swollen Brodhead Creek washed out paralleling railroad and road bridges, formerly located in the upper-center of this photo.

↑ In some cases the decks of bridges remained but the approaches to them were washed out. Two such examples were north of Analomink — for

DL&W Railroad, left, and for Cherry Lane Road, upper right. (from Lackawanna Flood Story)

↑ Between Analomink and Henryville are two large culverts for Paradise Creek to underpass the railroad. In one culvert a bridge for Rt. 90 (now Rt. 191) was built above the creek. In 1955, flood waters overtopped the bridge leaving it intact but washing out the south-side approach. (Pocono Record photo)