The old Vancleave Bible Institute, Frozen Creek

Kentucky · United States · Church

Students sheltered in the boiler room during the 1939 Frozen Creek flood. They had been warned about a tornado, not water.

The old Vancleave Bible Institute stood near Frozen Creek in the Kentucky hills. It was a Bible school taking both male and female students, and because the terrain made daily travel impossible, they lived on the campus.

In 1939 the Frozen Creek flood came through. Students and staff had taken shelter in the boiler room, which was the right thing to do in the emergency they had been warned about. They had been told a tornado was coming.

A great many of them died there.

Little of the school survived the water. What is left includes a dormitory, a gymnasium and a stone chapel.

What visitors report is children laughing and crying, which is the sound a residential school makes and the sound it stopped making in a single night.

The Frozen Creek flood is documented history in Breathitt County and remains one of the worst disasters in that part of Kentucky. The ruins are on private ground in difficult terrain and should be treated as a place where people drowned.

FAQ

Where is The old Vancleave Bible Institute, Frozen Creek located?

The old Vancleave Bible Institute, Frozen Creek is in Kentucky, United States.