- Not necessarily it's the first time that there's ever been a flood of that magnitude.

It's just the first time it's been when there's been population of people here that can document it and record it in our most recent history.

And there was things to lose.

There were possessions to lose, there was livelihoods to lose, and there was not just a death toll in animals and livestock, but there was a death toll in human life with that one as well.

So it's definitely been the one for the century.

We don't top it, we haven't topped it, which is great.

It's good.

You're talking about ice gorges anywhere from 30 to 50 feet high, so it was a significant impact.

But basically the 1881 flood, it was one of those heavy, heavy winters, lots of snow, lots of ice, lots of cold weather, and then the spring just warmed up too fast and caused a lot of water flooding on top of the ice that had not yet thawed.

There was a community called Green Island.

It wasn't actually an island, but there was a community of Green Island on the Nebraska side of the river south of what is today Riverside Park in Yankton, and the flood was very forceful.

You're not talking about just water.

You're talking about large, large chunks of ice, and that has a huge impact.

And there's a great story put out by one of the survivors after that flood from Green Island and talks about how they were rescued from the roof of one of the higher up residents of the community.

And as they were in this house, through the night, they heard the church bell of the church that was in Green Island ringing as it went down the river, took the whole church and everything, and it just dinged through the night down the river.

They heard it for miles.

So everything that they thought was gonna be solid and forever for at least a long time was just gone, wiped clean, and they never did rebuild there.

Nowadays we kind of, I don't know if we necessarily take it for granted, but we do have the luxury of having disaster relief programs in place.

In 1881, no such type thing existed necessarily, not on a grand scale.

There was not a troop or an army of people that came in and helped you pick up the pieces.

However, after the flood of 1881, news, this was national news, it did make it back to the East Coast, and people would put together, churches and so forth, put together barrels of goods to send out to the people like from Green Island who lost everything.

And so we have one of those pieces here at the museum.

It's called the Indestructible Book.

It's a children's book, and it's a cloth made book, and it came in one of those disaster relief barrels that was put together by a group on the East Coast, and somebody held onto it.

It was very cherished and loved, according to the records, by the child who received it, because he had nothing else at that point, so having this book was really special.