Alton, Illinois Tornado
May 22, 1873
Still another terrific tornado, or rather
cyclone, was that of May, 1873. At Alton the
famed funnel shaped cloud swept across the river
from the south, passed between the Topping store
and Farber’s
mill (now the Stanard
mill) -- the lot between being vacant and; by
creating a vacuum, caused the east wall of the
mill to fall outward from the basement to the
roof of a three story building. The wall was of
brick and three feet thick. The front wall of
Basse’s mill on Front street was also
blown in. The fourth story of the Armory Hall
building, corner of Third and Piasa streets, was
torn off. The cyclone then swept southeast and
took the flagstaff and chimneys off the City
Hall, then passed diagonally across the street
and crushed a two-story brick, northeast corner
of Market and Second streets, leaving not one
brick upon another; then rising higher took off
the chimneys of the three story brick adjoining,
occupied by Dr. Haskell’s
office; next, moving northeast and still rising
clipped the chimneys off the Ursuline Academy
and disappeared in the higher altitude. The
freaks of these cyclones are curious; for
instance, the fourth story of the Armory Hall
was blown off for the second time in this
disaster, the first being destroyed in the
great tornado
of 1860.
Centennial history of Madison County,
Illinois, and its people, 1812 to 1912,
1914, page 220
5/22/73 A small tornado moved erratically
across Alton, crossing the path of the June 2,
1860 storm. About a dozen buildings had roof and
wall damage.
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Centennial
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