Jackson County IL Archives News.....210 BAPTIST HOMES GONE; CHURCH RUIN - The Tri-State Tornado March 27, 1925 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Mary Riseling riseling@insightbb.com July 16, 2006, 2:53 pm The Murphysboro Daily Republican-Era. Murphysboro, IL March 27, 1925 The First Baptist church of Murphysboro has already raised its head out of the swelter of ruins and will build again. Two hundred and ten Baptist homes were laid low in the storm March 18, and just as the ruined church building at 15th Logan streets will again raise its weather battlements high, so will every owner of one of these homes of its members be urged to have heart and build again. Two hundred and ten homes owned by a single Murphysboro congregation gone! The count not yet complete, and not giving a check on casualties, sounds a high note as to what Murphysboro's physical loss must be. And yet the Baptists even now are planning to rebuild their church and planning to urge every member to restore his home. Drs. EWING and WATSON and Rev. A. J. RENDLEMAN, representatives of the Ministerial Association of St. Louis, conferred with Rev. H. T. ABBOTT, Baptist pastor, here Thursday. The conferees made no plans on account of emergency work among the sufferers. But it is announced the church will be rebuilt. The splendid parsonage building, adjoining the wrecked church, likewise is a mass of ruins. Rev. T. A. McMINN, pastor of the Carbondale Baptist church and Rev. ABBOTT and Dr. PETERSON of Chicago toured the area of devastation Thursday and made a check of 210 Baptist homes wiped out. No doubt there are many others wholly wrecked or partly destroyed. No list of casualties has been prepared. The Baptist church was just nearing completion when the storm came. It was a $60,000 edifice. Rev. ABBOTT had been pastor there eight years and had done much towards making the church one of the most successful in this part of the state. Six hundred attended Sunday school the Sunday preceding the storm. Additional Comments: Widely considered the most devastating and powerful tornado in American history, the Great Tri-State Tornado ripped through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. In its 219-mile-long wake it left four completely destroyed towns, six severely damaged ones, 15,000 destroyed homes, and 2,000 injured. Most significantly, 695 people were killed, a record for a single tornado. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/jackson/newspapers/210bapti130nnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 2.9 Kb