Arkansas Natural Disasters – Object #3

“A cyclone, carrying death and destruction in its wake, visited Fort Smith at 11:15 pm on Tuesday. January 11, 1898, and even at this writing- it is impossible to estimate tile loss of lite and property to her citizens. It was the most disastrous storm ever experienced in the southwest, and the destruction it worked was far more appalling than pen can tell. Block after block of business and residence property was leveled to the ground; houses were demolished to the foundations; others were left with but fragments of wall, or with the fractions of the floor of the first story remaining. Miles of electric and telephone wires and dozens of their poles were dashed to Mother Earth, adding not only to the damage and wreckage but increasing to an alarming extent the danger to life; and to avoid this impending danger it was necessary to cut off the current from the electric power house, thereby throwing the business portion of the city into a darkness that seriously interfered with the working of the relief corps, which had immediately gathered to render assistance to the hundreds of injured. Trees of half a century’s growth were uprooted and carried a great distance; heavy masonry, at the approach of the terrific strength of the storm king, released its connection, for the time being, with earth, and, in fact, nothing movable was strong enough to resist the pitiless fury of the awful wind…”