The Bosses Club - Paperback

by Richard A. Gregory (Author)

AN HISTORICAL NOVEL The story of America's transition from iron-making to steel, and questioning the cause of the 1889 Johnstown Flood. The Bosses Club is a fresh look at the history of the American iron and steel industry and the most infamous flood in America. In this book, you'll learn about the pivotal role Johnstown played in developing America's steel industry; who were that industry's true founders, inventors, innovators and scoundrels; and how negligence by members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, many of whom were friends, colleagues and associates of Andrew Carnegie, contributed to the great Johnstown flood of 1889. Mr. Gregory explains in an historical fiction why so many people lived in the remote Conemaugh Valley starting around 1830, why a perilous earthen dam was constructed upstream from the city and how a series of modifications to the dam by its owners, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, led to the dam's failure resulting in one of the worst "natural" disasters in American history. The story follows several families during Johnstown's development and questions the accepted history of the 1889 flood as simply a "natural disaster" caused by an act of God. Whether by omission or commission no one will ever know, but there can be no question that the acts of men played a significant role in the events that led to the failure of the South Fork Dam and the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889.

Author Biography

After growing up in Johnstown and graduating from Westmont High School in 1954, I became a fifth generation steel worker. I went to work for Bethlehem Steel Company at the age of 19 in the section called Lower Cambria, the site of the original Cambria Iron Company buildings. I worked in the machine shop, next door to the blacksmith building which George King & Dr. Peter Shoenberger built in 1854 even before Daniel Morrell came to Johnstown. Both buildings are still standing. After a long steel strike in 1956 I was called back to work, this time in the tool and die shop of the Franklin Railroad Car Division of Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown. The car shops are no longer operating today. At the start of the Suez Crisis, I volunteered for active duty in the Navy Reserve. From 1957-1959, I served aboard an amphibious ship attached to the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. Upon discharge from active duty I married my love and while pondering my future, I again returned to work in the steel mills, this time in the wire mill located across the river from the Coopersdale section of Johnstown. The wire mill is still operating under the name Johnstown Wire Technologies and employs 700 people. When my wife became pregnant I began wanting a better future than working in the mills, but options were limited and time was short. Fortunately, with my wife's encouragement I overcame the fear of taking a pay cut and losing the security of working for a major steel company. I quit the mill in 1960 and took an apprenticeship position with the National Cash Register Company, which I believed offered more opportunity. After several years working for NCR as a field technician, I resigned to start my own business machine company in Johnstown. I was successful with that company and it is now ranked, for its market size, as one of the top distributors of business equipment in the United States. I retired from operating the business in 2004 and that was when I began to get serious about finishing this book. I now enjoy spending time with my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as sailing and bicycling.