Last night I was looking through a packet of old family photographs and ran across these flood pictures, which had been copied from somebody's photo album. I became curious about where the flood was and started doing some photo detective work this morning.
Because my family lived in Canon City when most of the photos were taken, I first thought it might be Canon City. But I didn't think Canon City had street cars and I didn't find any mention of a flood in the Arcadia Canon City book. Then I wondered if it might be Pueblo, so I googled Pueblo flood and discovered the 1921 great flood in Pueblo.
I visited the Denver Public Library digitized photo collection to look at photos of the flood and thought I was on the right track. I knew there was one way I would know for certain it was the right flood. I could read the name "Kress' Store" on a sign in the first photograph, so I looked up Pueblo in the 1921 Colorado Business Directory on HeritageQuest and I found the Kress store on 211 Main Street. The Great Flood of Pueblo killed 1500 people.
Someone in the Christison or Frankenbery families must have gone to Pueblo and to take the pictures.
