Champaign, Illinois Tornado
July 10, 1861
Fearful tornado in Illinois
Lives Lost.
On the 10th inst. a terrible tornado swept over
Champaign county, Illinois. A correspondent of
the Chicago Tribune says: "After the wind had
tested the moving capacity of everything
portable, then came a shower of hail, which
converted our immense shower of hail, which
converted our immense crops of ripening wheat
and waving corn into a barren waste. There are
many farms in the vicinity of Champaign City
upon which there is not a green leaf or a blade
of grass left.--Wheat, oats, barley and rye are
entirely ruined. I visited many fields to-day,
and found the small grain mown to the ground as
with a scythe; and the stalks were beaten and
shivered, looking as though they had passed
through a threshing machine. Corn which was one
and a half feet high, was cut off even with the
ground, and the stalk beaten to a jelly an inch
below the surface. Up to this date we have heard
of five persons who were killed, and quite a
number who were more or less seriously wounded."
The Daily Dispatch, Richmond, VA 11 July
1861
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