Henderson history: Destructive storm swept over Tri-County area in 1923
A monster thunderstorm stomped across the Tri-County March 11, 1923, leaving Waverly almost a total ruin and destroying up to 50 houses and barns in the Smith Mills area.
The storm hit Union County about 9 p.m. on a Sunday, so The Gleaner wasn’t able to publish anything about it until March 13. But even a couple of days later it was hard to get a clear picture of the damage because so many telegraph and telephone wires were down.
“The extent of the damage was so widespread that some time will elapse before normal conditions obtain,” The March 14 Gleaner reported, noting crews had been busy trying to make repairs. At that time there was two telephone firms providing local service, as well as two methods of sending telegraphs.
The Western Union telegraph had one wire working to St. Louis, but traffic was hampered by relaying messages through an office already congested with traffic. The telephone companies had a single line working to Louisville, which was operational a day after the storm.
The manager of the Cumblerland Telephone Co. reported in the March 13 Gleaner that “many poles were down on the Owensboro and Morganfield lines, 20 at one place on the former and 16 on the latter.”
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The Home Telephone Co. didn’t have quite so many poles down, but it still sustained major damage.
At least two dozen hogs were killed in Henderson County, along with four mules, four horses, and three cows. A lot of other livestock were injured.
“Scattered farmhouses felt its power. Barns reeled and fell before its shock. Towering oaks and other giants of the forest succumbed to its advance. Livestock, feeling the thrill of terror, fled for shelter to their accustomed refuge, which too often was soon but debris in the path of destruction.”
The impact also hit commercial establishments. In Waverly the general store was a total loss, another house had burned, and 18 others were thrown from their foundations. “The smokestack at the Waverly mine was blown down and the mine property otherwise badly damaged.”
The smokestack at Henderson’s Southland Mine No. 3 was also toppled, wrecking a large generator. The engine house was in ruins, the wash room was ripped away, the corn crib destroyed, and five of the company houses were unroofed.
“This loss is peculiarly hard as it will throw such a large force of men out of employment for ten or fifteen days.”The boiler room of the Pittsburg Coal Co. was damaged at Baskett, which bore the brunt of the hail that accompanied the storm.
The coal mine at Corydon also experienced extensive damage.
Hebbardsville’s new high school escaped the storm’s wrath, which seemed to hit hardest in the southwestern and northeastern portions of the county.
But the Baptist church in Hebbardsville lost nearly all its windows, and the Zion Baptist Church was badly damaged when a large tree was blown onto it. Part of the roof at Cinnamond’s general store in Zion was blown away.
Other than the aforementioned houses and barns destroyed at Smith Mills, at least two dozen barns and seven houses across the county were destroyed or badly damaged. That number is probably low because of the difficulty The Gleaner had in obtaining information.
The story went on to note, “The chief damage (in Henderson) was from the destruction of trees, although shingles were torn off some roofs and in a few instances tin roofs (were) partially blown away.” The March 14 Gleaner noted by that point there were only 11 Henderson telephones out of service.
It was a different story out in the county, where insurance agents estimated damages at $100,000. That would be about $1.75 million in modern dollars.
“Nearing Poole the temporarily decreased velocity again attained almost cyclonic proportions.” Joe Bradley lost a large barn filled with his tobacco crop taken from nine acres. In the same barn two buggies, a mower, a hay rake, and various other implements were totaled.
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Other farmers in the Poole vicinity who lost barns include R.B. Cravens, Isom Sellers, Olive Royster, and Joe Eblen.At Dixie a stock barn owned by Charles Sutton was destroyed and two mules killed.
“This is only a few of the many buildings torn up between Dixie, Poole and Robards, as the bad wire service made it impossible to secure anything like a complete account of the damage.”
At Smith Mills, among the nearly 50 buildings lost, there were reports from A.T. Greenwell, who had two barns destroyed, 12 hogs killed and his home damaged, and J.T. Lilly, who lost his barn, tobacco crop and wagon.
Also, Dr. J.W. Cooper, four barns filled with corn and hay were destroyed; W.J. Shoulders, barn blown onto house, destroying both; R.C. Gabbart, two barns and outbuildings destroyed; and Herbert Smith, two barns felled and eight hogs killed.
Those Smith Mills farmers losing a single barn, although they might also have lost livestock and outbuildings, included A. Higgins, George Powell, J.T. Smith, Charles Moore, Henry Lee Cooper, A.T. Haynes, T.K. Lilly, S.E. Sowards, George Martin, George Crowder, James Eskew, as well as the Hopkins Bros. and the Burbank farm.
Between Smith Mills and Corydon, Charles Ganno, Elizabeth Mattingly and J.J. Mills all lost their barns.
Jesse Farley and Robert Jordan lost barns at Baskett, which “were among the several either destroyed or damaged.”
James Staples lost a barn at Hebbardsville, as did Whit Blandford, James T. Newman and other farmers. “In some cases, their barns were blown down and sometimes only wrecked.”
Houses across the county lost their chimneys and windows. Near Sebree, Fred Powell’s farm near the fairgrounds lost its silo.
All told, I don’t think it was a tornado that struck – at least there was no use of that term in The Gleaner – but the straight-line winds did enormous damage.
“One remarkable fact,” the March 14 edition said, “almost a miracle in view of the situation, was the small loss of livestock and the total loss of life in this section (although an unnamed Union County woman was injured). Other counties in the state report, along with their property damage, also lives lost in several localities, but throughout this county, Union, Daviess and Webster, no fatalities have been reported.”
75 YEARS AGO
Seven of Henderson’s largest industries were asked to shut down because of a breakdown at the city power plant, according to The Gleaner of March 18, 1948.
They included Bear Brand Hosiery, Osborn Brush Co., Period Tables, Quality Novelty, Atlas Tack Co., Delker Bros., and the Ohio Valley Soybean Cooperative.
One of the boilers at the power plant stopped working March 12 which required turning off the 3,500-watt generator. On March 17 the second generator went out. That prompted the shutdown. Power for residential use was provided by Kentucky Utilities.
Power was out through a good portion of the downtown area for 50 minutes, according to an editorial that ran March 20. “If anything more was needed to alert the community to the need for dependable power we believe that it was furnished Friday.”
50 YEARS AGO
Long-standing complaints from officers of the Henderson Police Department were finally rewarded, according to The Gleaner of March 14, 1973, when the Henderson City Commission tacitly approved a 25-percent pay raise during a work session.
Annual salaries for starting policemen were $5,408 but were expected to rise to approximately $6,900 during the 1973-74 fiscal year. Police Chief Charlie West noted that 15 percent of the raise would come from state and federal funds – but that the 15-percent money would be available for only two years.
25 YEARS AGO
Unison Transformer Services was for sale by parent company Union Carbide Corp., according to The Gleaner of March 17, 1998.
The plant had been major source of controversy when it was announced in 1985 because its function was to separate polychlorinated biphenyls – a hazardous chemical – from electrical transformer fluid.
The 1998 story stemmed from the real estate broker, who was advertising a price of $695,000 for the 14,000-square-foot plant building and 15 acres of land. The plant was built in 1986 to be resistant to earthquakes because of the environmental concerns that dogged the project.
Plant business manager Wayne Jenkins said the facility was being cleaned to an extraordinary degree. He compared it to the same level a restaurant would have to achieve if it were to be approved for reopening by the Environmental Protection Agency after a PCB spill.
A Norwegian company bought the Unison plant and announced plans to build a $33 million aluminum operation there, according to The Gleaner of March 10, 1999. Hydro Aluminum is the U.S. subsidiary of Norsk Hydro ASA, a global firm with a wide array of interests. A formal announcement was made June 29, 1999.
Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.
This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Henderson history: Destructive storm swept over Tri-County area in 1923
