Jackson County IL Archives News.....LOG HOUSES SAVE LIVES IN BOTTOMS - The Tri-State Tornado March 22, 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, 7:57 am

The Murphysboro Daily Republican-Era. Murphysboro, IL March 22, 1925


    How old time log houses saved at least two families in the bottoms when
Gorham was swept away and how the cyclone got to Murphysboro was told The
Independent today by Supervisor Julius MOECKEL of Fountain Bluff township.  He
said:

    "The storm crossed the Mississippi at Big Lake ditch where lives the
ferryman Martin MIESNER.  His home is built on the original sturdy log house. 
Everything went but the logs.  MEISNER and family were saved by the log walls.

    "Traveling Gorhamward it crossed the John RAJEN farm, taking out buildings.

    "The barn was taken at Henry ARBEITER's Jr.

    "The Arthur HINES farm was swept clean, but again the log house base of a
modern farm home stood the gaff and behind this the HINES family survived.

    "Whipping across the Fred ARBEITER Jr.'s farm and taking hay sheds but
missing the home the storm raced on and laid the town of Gorham low.  

    "Jimmy BOULTON was killed there with the others.  Reuben CRANE and wife and
father-in-law died.

    "The school house collapsed, the roof crashing through the floors.  The
teacher of the primary grade ran out of the building and died just outside the
front door.  Many children died behind her.

    "Tom DUNN's youngest boy jumped out of a second story window of the school
in the worst of the storm and fled homeward, reaching there unhurt.  Eingineer
DUNN's elder boy remained in the school and was injured, dying on the way to a
Cairo hospital.

    "The Missouri Pacific track was torn and rails and ties stood upright in the
air at one point.  Gorham was about wiped out.  I do not know how many were
killed and injured.

    "A horse picked up at Gorham was found near Sand Ridge.

    "The wind all but missed Sand Ridge and tore along the Town Creek road to
Hosea ELLIOTT's.  From there it took Mail Carrier WAYMAN's farm clean and got
the house at the WOLFF farm where Mrs. WOLFF was badly injured.

    "It took Tom BURREN's farm clean and ripped the concrete block wall away
from the WORTHEN Cemetery.  

    "Dashing riverward it crossed the Big Muddy west of Buster Brown Park and
entered Murphysboro."


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.

The above is a story published in an Extra Edition of the Murphysboro Daily
Independent published at 5:20 p.m. on March 22, 1925.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/jackson/newspapers/loghouse127nnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/

File size: 3.3 Kb