Greasy Prairie, Illinois Tornado
May 18, 1883
The year 1883 was marked by two storms that
will be long remembered. The
ice
storm of Feb. 5th and the tornado of May
18th... The Greasy Prairie tornado first touched
the ground in Greene county, a few miles east of
Roodhouse, in section 21, township 12 north,
range 11 west, and swept in a great curve to the
northeast, the concavity of the curve being to
the northwest, and left the ground in section
21, township 14 north, range 9 west, in Morgan
county, forming a path 19 miles in length
through a region of country most of which was
thickly settled. Although no village was struck,
the destruction of property was very great, and
how the people escaped with so little loss of
life seems quite mysterious, when looking over
the ruins of their dwellings. There were 41
dwellings destroyed or badly wrecked, and about
the same number of barns and outhouses. Five
persons were killed and fifteen seriously hurt.
A considerable number of families found shelter
in out door cellars, and we may say in passing,
the out door cellar has proved to be a perfectly
safe retreat. A number of families who were not
provided with such cellars resorted to thickets
of underbrush. All of these came out safely. In
this tornado all injuries happened to those who
remained indoors. In some places this tornado
spread out about one mile wide; in other parts
it was much narrower but not often less than
one-fourth of a mile. It was very irregular in
outline and in its effects. It sometimes
happened that a part of a house would be left
standing while everything else about was torn to
fragments for a quarter of a mile on either
side, and occasionally there was a point of
destruction that seemed to be to one side of the
storm’s track—out of its course This tornado,
although much larger, and, on the whole, doing
much more damage to property, seemed to lack the
compactness, certainty of movement and terrific
force of the
Literberry tornado. The cloud
accompanying it seems to have been continually
changing its form, so much so that no two
observers of it give the same description of
what they saw. The time of the tornado was
definitely fixed as it entered Greasy Prairie.
Mr. A. S. Gunn had very carefully
corrected his clock the same day at noon. The
part of the house in which this clock sat was
thrown out of plumb so that the clock stopped.
This showed the time to be 6:15 p.m.
Historic Morgan and Classic
Jacksonville, 1885, page 215-216
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