Published: April 10, 2007 11:40 pm         

A flood formed of grief, not of an excess of rain

Several times during the century just past, heavy rains have sent floodwaters surging through the south part of Enid. However, flood of 1912 was caused not by rainfall but by grief.

In 1912 the dairy farm owned by George Mosher occupied a 160 acre tract of land south and west of what is now the intersection of Buchanan and Garriott in southwest Enid.

About 40 acres of the quarter section were taken up by a lake that extended from Johnson and Garriott west to Cleveland Street.

It was a manmade lake. Mosher had dammed Boggy Creek about where it crosses South Johnson today. In those days the creek carried more water than it does today.The lake that backed up behind the dam was a popular boating and picnicking spot for Enid residents.

The dam was in the low-lying area just a couple of blocks south of Garriott on Johnson.

Photos taken of the lake in about 1912 show people in row boats on the lake and people in the water.

Mosher was a prominent Enid resident. He owned a Guernsey dairy farm, the lake along Garriott and a saloon on the east side of Enid’s downtown Square.

The family lived in a two-story house at the corner of Washington and Randolph.

Mosher had been a cowboy, driving cattle up the Chisholm Trail. He had settled in Hennessey, before moving to Enid and buying the dairy farm.

He had two sons, Hugh and Bill.

T.J. Mosher, who is George’s grandson and lives in Enid, said the main things in George Mosher’s life were his family, and especially his two, fine sons. Nothing mattered more to Mosher than his sons.

It was a warm summer day in 1912 when the two boys took a break from their chores on the dairy farm to go for a swim in the lake. Bill, who was the oldest, could swim, but Hugh, who was 12, could not.

Hugh was playing in the water and drowned. Bill had tried to save him but couldn’t. When he saw his brother had drowned, he went home but didn’t tell anyone.

According to Mosher, “The way they found Hugh was by questioning Bill. At first Bill said he was playing with another boy. Then they went back to the lake and found where Hugh had taken his clothes off.

“Finally, Bill admitted his brother drowned,” T.J. said.

Searchers waded the lake all afternoon, looking for Hugh’s body. Finally, about dusk, they found his body in shallow water in the far west corner of the lake.

After Hugh’s body was found, his grief-stricken father sat on the concrete dam at the east end of the lake thinking.

The next morning, he bought several sticks of dynamite and attached them to the concrete dam. There was enough dynamite to demolish the dam.

The ensuing explosion did more than just blow up the dam and drain the lake, as George had planned. Instead it unleashed a torrent of water from the lake that surged along Boggy Creek across town and into the Southern Heights addition in southeast Enid, flooding some of it.

George apparently had demolished the dam to make sure no one else’s son could drown in the murky waters.

“The drowning was a terrible ordeal for a kid at that time,” Mosher said. “Bill passed away at 36 — of cancer.”

Mosher said Bill never would talk about the drowning incident.

Mosher said the impromptu flood brought a number of lawsuits filed by those who had been damaged by the flood of water from the lake. T.J. doesn’t know the outcome of those lawsuits, but his grandfather did not lose his dairy farm.

He was fortunate no lives were lost in the flood. Property was damaged, but T.J. said the people of Enid seemed to understand he blew up the dam out of grief for his son.

So, what had been known as Mosher Lake became Mosher’s pasture. George only lived another 10 years, and, according to T.J., he died of grief.

Where there was once a lake, is now an upscale housing addition.



Brown is a retired News & Eagle editor.