3-078-045 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cyclone at Louisville, Kentucky, United States: ruins of the Falls City Hall, 1890. 'The tornado, cyclone, or revolving hurricane that swept over parts of Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee...was one of the most destructive on record...The large city of Louisville suffered more than any other place...A section nearly one mile square...was traversed diagonally by the tornado...killing nearly a hundred and fifty persons...The calamity would have been much worse in the business hours of the day, when Main-street, with its shops and warehouses, and the large tobacco-factories, were crowded with people... In the Falls City Hall, where a dancing-school for children was being held on the lower floor, and a lodge meeting on the upper floor, there were some two hundred people altogether; the greatest loss of life was here, and many children, parents, and friends were killed or grievously hurt. The calamity would have been much worse in the business hours of the day, when Main-street, with its shops and warehouses, and the large tobacco-factories, were crowded with people. Eleven of the great leaf-tobacco warehouses are in ruins; also some of the best hotels, churches, and school-houses, and the Union Railway depot, on the riverside'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.