Hunt Co., TX - News: The Most Destructive Storm, 1927
*****************************************************
This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by:
Sarah Swindell <sss@texoma.net>

USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
*****************************************************

    The most destructive storm within the memory of old setters visited this
section of Hunt County between two and three Monday morning.
    Destruction entered Hunt County a few miles north of Josephine and
traveled in a northeasterly direction,  and then left the county just north of
Wolfe City.  Dead in the county numbered six.  Mr. and Mrs. Lackey who lived
two miles northeast of Kellogg were killed when their home was blown to bits.
Mr. Lackey was killed instantly and Mrs. Lackey died about 9:00 AM the same
morning.  Mr. and Mrs. George Stidham and two children who lived in the Kiser
community three miles southwest of Wolfe City were killed and the house in
which they lived was completely demolished.
    The two-story home of Charles Cole west of Floyd was blown away and
completely destroyed, as was the home of Lon Whitell.  Both families were in
the storm cellars.  Sim Purdue, who lived on the W. R. J. Camp farm had both
arms broken.  The Dewey Coon home was completely destroyed.  Tractors and
heavy machinery that weighed several tons were blown away and completely
destroyed.  The Hopewell School was a total loss and all tombstones in the
Hopewell Cemetery laid flat on the ground by the velocity of the wind.  On the
Kemp farm near Wagner, five houses were left a maize of rubble.  On Birdsong
farm adjoining, two houses were completely destroyed.  On the Moreland farm,
one house was leveled and several persons injured.  The Morrison Service
Station on the Greenville-Celeste Highway, the Luther Nicholson home at
Merrick, the Gus Holloway home, the Jim Ed Ramsey home, the W. A. Puckett
home, the Mrs. Marcus Scott home, the M. A. Chastain farm home, the Mose
Warren farm home, the Bas Williams home, the Kizer home, the John Stone home,
and the W. D. Bost home were all destroyed.
    Many had broken arms and legs and various injuries and hundreds of barns
and other outhouses were destroyed.  Large trees were broken like kindling
wood with damages running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The only
reason that the loss of life was so light was due to the fact that it had been
storming most of the night and people were on the alert and most of those in
the path of the storm were in storm cellars.
(May 12, 1927, The Celeste Courier)