Wehrum, Pennsylvania
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Wehrum is an abandoned mining town (often called a ghost town) in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. The last known inhabitants left in 1934.
Wehrum was founded in 1901 by Judge A. V. Barker and Warren Delano. It was named after Henry Wehrum, general manager of the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company. The town plan had six streets, all 60 feet wide, and consisted of 250 houses, a bank, hotel, company store, post office, school and two churches. The cities of Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh all bought coal mined in Wehrum.
At the time, Wehrum was known for its multiple mine explosions. In 1909, 21 miners were killed in Lackawanna's No.4 mine. The mines were eventually sold to the Bethlehem Mines Corporation in 1922. Wehrum started to decline 1929. The houses started to be stripped for lumber, and the mine buildings were sold for scrap. Mining supported the town, and when mining died so did many mining towns. By 1934 only one house, the school, and the jail remained. The cemetery can still be seen in the forest in Wehrum. The nearest town is Vintondale.
There had been a dam built near the town of Wehrum which had been used by the Bethlehem Mines Corporation. This dam was one of six that broke during two rainy days in July - the 19th & 20th - of 1977, contributing to the Johnstown Flood of that year. It is listed as "Unnamed Dam" in some places, but most who live in the area continue to refer to it as the Wehrum Dam, even to this day. The sides of the walls of the old dam still rest among the cliffs of the area, the basin of the former dam now a tangled and overgrown meadow. A group of 5 campers from a nearby town had just barely missed witnessing the 1977 breech as they had been camping at the site just days earlier.
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