Business & Tech

Valley Junction Showed Grit as Merchants Cleaned Up Grime of 1993 Flood

Valley Junction, a 2012 Great American Main Street Award winner, emerged from floods with greater diversity and cohesiveness.

When the Floods of 1993 swallowed Valley Junction, merchants had little advance notice but a lot of determination.

Rewind to July 10, 1993: Valley Junction was dressed up for its Centennial celebration when the historic shopping district – recognized for its mettle and determination earlier this week as a 2012 winner – became part of the Raccoon River.

Betty Hill-Swander remembers moving things from the downstairs of  her theater turned Vaudeville house turned dance studio-costume supply house.

Our celebration of Valley Junction’s 2012 Great American Main Street Award continues. Upload your favorite photos and videos in Pics & Clips. Share a memory in comments below. Check back with Patch tomorrow for more great Valley Junction stories.

“We were like ants,” she said, recalling the assembly line workers and volunteers formed to move merchandise from the lower floor of the buildin to higher ground.

Valley Junction’s Charm Caked in Muck

When the water receded, the damage to Valley Junction was mind-bending. All its charm was caked in muck.

Some businesses had as much as 6 feet of water in them. Century-old floors were warped, doors and windows were broken. Everything – the streets and the buildings and the and the merchandise there wasn’t time to move – was a filthy, smelly mess.

Accepting the national award Monday for Valley Junction, Main Street Iowa Director Thom Gunzman recalled the emotion of the time, admitting to crying when he learned Valley Junction was “100 percent flooded, had a 100 percent loss of business, 100 percent closure and 100 percent abandonment of buildings.”

Within two weeks after the floodwaters receded, though, some shopkeepers were back in business.

Some others never returned.

“The flood was very devastating and very expensive, and we lost a lot of good merchants,” Hill-Swander said. “Even though it was a very, very bad time for everyone, in the end, a blessing is sometimes in disguise.”

No building was spared – though some suffered less damage than others – and everyone had to spruce up their shops.

“The shops all look very nice,” Hill-Swander said, “and it’s a lovely little district.”

Valley Junction Honed its Focus After Floods

Director Jim Miller said the businesses that came back after the floods were “more serious” and committed to making the destination district work.

In the rebuilding years, Valley Junction changed from a district with a large number of antique shops to one with a greater diversity of shops, eateries and entertainment venues as merchants sharpened their vision, said Clyde Evans, West Des Moines’ director of .

Valley Junction’s comeback and continuing evolution is “a good testament to the property owners,” Evans said.

“They’re a determined bunch,” he said of their perseverance during the floods. “They have a great attitude. It would have real easy for people to give up, but immediately, it was ‘we can recover.’”

It took longer to convince the buying public of that.

“After the Floods of 1993, it took quite a few years to get people to start coming back down here, but those people who came down here a lot knew we were back in business,” said Ann Au, owner of , a tony jewelry design house that anchors a premier Fifth Street corner.

“It really takes a lot of committed merchants to get this whole area to thrive, but also great leadership at the Foundation,” Au said. “We get that support from the office, and it’s a real nice exchange that’s given us a great diversity of shops.”

The ultimate irony, Evans said, was that construction was that flooding occurred on  Thursday and a Saturday, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was scheudled to begin work on a multi-million-dollar levee system to protect Valley Junction the following Monday.

Today, he said, the area is safe from the sometimes unruly Raccoon River.

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