The Newport Hardware Man Who Went Through Johnstown — and Kept the River Mud to Prove It
In his store window, E. E. Reid displays a gilded St. George torn from a clock and a rocking chair pulled from the 1889 Johnstown flood — silt still hardened in the crevices — and jokes that he is still selling hardware because the flood only went through him, not over him.
In the windows of Reid's hardware store two relics of the awful Johnstown flood are being exhibited this week. One of these is a metal horse and rider, representing St. George in the legendary tale of "St. George and the Dragon." This ornament surmounted a fine clock and was torn away from its base and buried in the river slime and mud which had entered the second floor of the house. It was intact even to the gold spear held by the rider, save for the loss of the tail of the horse. The crevices of the ornament still show traces of the mud and river silt where it has hardened as firm as cement.
The other relic is a rocking chair, minus one of its ornamental knobs, but still useful.
These relics, still most carefully preserved, are the property of E. E. Reid, the hardware merchant, who went through the flood on that memorable day, May 31, 1889. After speaking of his terrible experience and the awful sights witnessed he jokingly remarked:
"Some people may take exceptions to the term 'I went through the Johnstown flood,' but I am right in using it, for if that flood had gone through me I would not be selling hardware in Newport."
“Some people may take exceptions to the term 'I went through the Johnstown flood,' but I am right in using it, for if that flood had gone through me I would not be selling hardware in Newport.”
Disaster survivors have always carried their mementos with them, and small-town store windows were once the closest thing to a museum. Newport itself sits where the Pend Oreille River can rise, so a merchant displaying flood relics was not just nostalgia — it was a quiet reminder of what water can do to a town, and a bit of grim humor from a man who had already survived it once.
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