A disastrous flood of the Ohio River in 1913 (which crested at 51.5 feet at Wheeling upriver and 69.9 feet downriver at Cincinnati) caused considerable damage in Sistersville, Otherwise, the disasters Sistersville faced usually involved fire, long before a 1970 fire that destroyed a historic downtown block. Sistersville long had several fire brigades or pumping companies. A gasoline plant was built at the oil field and in 1911 the Carter Oil company built the world's largest gasoline print south of SIstersville, which had an explosion in 1913 but rebuilt, such that the American Petroleum Institute cited for its gas development work in 1925. Sistersville took pride in Tyler High School graduate Cecil Harland Underwood (1922-) who at age 22 represented the county in the House of Delegates, and became the youngest-ever West Virginia governor in 1956, then in 1996 was elected again and became the state's oldest governor.