The Great Tri-State Tornado hit 100 years ago

PRINCETON, Ind. (WFIE) - March 18th, 1925 - the day of the deadliest and most devastating storm in all of United States history, known as the Great Tri-State Tornado.

“The length, the travel time, how fast it moved on the ground, all those things were such, even to this day, it set so many records,” said Princeton Mayor and local historian Greg Wright. “It was such an unwarned community. When it hit, they had no clue what was getting ready to happen.”

It was just after 4 p.m. on a calm Wednesday afternoon in Princeton, Indiana.

A massive, relentless storm was brewing just southwest of the city, and the people there had no idea.

“I looked at the newspaper from the day before, which a lot of people got their weather forecast out of that or the farmer’s almanac, right? And the weather on the day before the tornado hit Princeton, it said fair to partly cloudy with a chance of wind. Well, there was a chance of wind alright, but it was a massive amount of wind,” said Mayor Wright.

Mayor Wright spent years studying the 219-mile path of destruction.

The monster storm began in Ellington, Missouri around 1:00 in the afternoon, killing 11 people in its path.

It hopped the Mississippi River into Southern Illinois, ripping across multiple towns, including areas of White County.

After killing more than 600 people in Illinois, the twister sped across the Wabash River and demolished the towns of Griffin, Owensville, and Princeton.

The storm took 71 lives in Indiana, then dissipated just southwest of Petersburg.

“Griffin was absolutely demolished. There was nothing left. Some of the pictures we have it’s just a field of boards. They had to erect a tent city to house those who survived,” said Princeton Library Historian & Genealogist Allen Burr.

Preserving the old photographs and artifacts from that day is Burr’s job.

“These are just really a collection of some of the most striking images from the tornado. I also have two obituary lists from our town, and they’re hard to read because some of these people were very young. Nelly Cooper, she was 17 years - lost her life at the Heinz Plant. Edna Wilkinson was ten, and Lloyd Wilkinson was seven.”

The tornado destroyed two major employers on the south end of the city, Southern Railway Shops and the Heinz Factory.

Around town, people often refer to Baldwin Heights as “ground zero” of the tornado.

Baldwin Heights School was hit hard, a building left as a shell of itself.

“There was a school right where we’re standing, and it was pretty well destroyed by the tornado. Fortunately, the school was out. If the storm would’ve hit an hour earlier, there would’ve been a whole lot of casualties,” said Princeton native Robert Gibson, Jr.

Gibson is passing on the stories of his in-law’s, who survived the storm as children.

“Fortunately, the Shop’s employees were on their way home. My wife’s grandfather worked there, and he saw the storm coming. Hid behind a building, but still got hit by a, my father-in-law called it a brick bat, and it broke his leg. He was in the hospital for a number of weeks. He was the next to the last person to get released from the hospital.”

Gibson says his wife’s parents' home was destroyed on that day, and it was a horrific memory they could never really get past.

“If they hadn’t survived, you know, my life would’ve been different,” said Gibson.

The path of the tornado tore through the south side of Princeton, but luckily a majority of the people weren’t there.

They were in the town square.

There was a special kind of drawing and sale happening there.

It gave hundreds of people a chance at survival, without them even realizing it.

“If the folks wouldn’t have left their homes to go downtown to be present to win in the drawings and things that were going on that day, we would’ve had hundreds, hundreds more killed,” said Mayor Wright.

“Whenever they walked into the stores, they had no idea what was going on in the south end of town. Until people started rolling in bruised, bloodied, some even dying. They had no idea,” said Burr.

Martial law was declared in Princeton, and the National Guard came to protect the disaster stricken areas.

The day after the tornado, stories shared by survivors say Princeton sounded like a construction site.

One month later, Baldwin Heights school reopened.

The Heinz Factory and Southern Shops restarted operations.

New homes were sprouting up in neighborhoods.

“The fact that they were able to rebound and pull together as, you know there’s the word unity in the word community,” said Mayor Wright. “It was like oh we went through a bad thing but lets roll up our sleeves and lets make the best of this.”

A century later, people continue to remember that tragic day and the lives lost.

The horrific stories from survivors will continue to be passed down for generations to come.

The towns once destroyed will continue to push on.

“I think that this anniversary stands as a marker that people are resilient. People can make it through, and they can still go on to lead prosperous lives even in the face of tragedy,” said Burr.