April 18, 1880 . . . Tornado Devastates Marshfield
In Marshfield, Missouri, Sunday April 18, 1880, occasional showers, hailstones, and heavier rains preceded the appearance of a huge, cone-shaped dark mass, several hundred yards in width. Through the heart of the town it laid a path of destruction a half-mile wide. Eighty-seven persons were killed or died of injuries, 150 families lost their homes, and estimates of property damage ranged from $120,000 to $350,000.
All night long the uninjured worked among the ruins rescuing the living and unearthing the dead. As soon as workmen had repaired the telegraph wires, a call for help was tapped out to Springfield. Three trains arrived Monday bringing physicians, nurses, provisions, and a corps of women. Early in the morning the first floor of the large public schoolhouse, which was undamaged, became a hospital. Mattresses laid across the school desks made temporary beds for the injured while the dead lay on improvised biers in the courthouse yard. Food, clothing, and cash contributions totaling $16,691.44 poured in from neighboring communities. On Wednesday, April 21, Lebanon citizens raised $1000 in fifteen minutes.
The storm removed the second floor of the two-story, brown stone courthouse and wrecked a block of brick buildings facing the public square. Sixteen business houses were totally destroyed. The tornado, which swept into Missouri through McDonald and Barry counties, crept northeast around Springfield and passed northwest around Jefferson City, killing several persons and damaging property in Miller, Morgan, Moniteau, and Callaway counties.
For primary source material on the Marshfield tornado see: