1903 Gainesville tornado

On Monday, June 1, 1903, a catastrophic tornado struck the city of Gainesville, Georgia, killing at least 98 people and injuring 180 or more.[1][2][3] The tornado is retrospectively estimated to have been an F4 on the modern-day Fujita scale.[4][nb 1] The tornado, which was of very brief duration relative to its intensity, lasted approximately two minutes, and struck a trail roughly 4 mi (6.4 km) long. According to tornado researcher Thomas P. Grazulis, the Gainesville tornado was one of the shortest-tracked F4 tornadoes on record.[10] It skirted the south of the city, starting in the southwest and proceeding northeast, passing through a natural depression roughly 100 ft (30 m) lower than the city itself. The area, which included cotton mills, reported about 50 deaths and incurred the worst damage; in this area the intensity of the damage was equivalent to low-end F4 status.[4][11] Unlike a similar event in 1936, the 1903 tornado missed downtown Gainesville.[12]

The tornado, initially appearing along the train track, was at first thought to be smoke from a train. It struck a cotton mill at 12:45 p.m. local standard time, ripping off the top floor where a number of children were working, many of them numbering among the fatalities. The power of the tornado ripped an iron cupola from an approximately 40-foot-wide (12 m) standpipe, crushing a number of people when it fell down.[11] The tornado also damaged the Gainesville Iron Works and track, signals and freight cars of the Southern Railway Company, before destroying approximately 70 of the 120 workers' cottages at the Pacolet Mills in New Holland, where young children and elderly were located at the time. In total, at least 98—and possibly as many as 104—people were killed and at least 180 injured, with some reports indicating up to 190 injuries. The number of people harmed was reduced due to many workers attending picnics away from the site when the tornado struck.[4][11]

Almost 33 years later, on April 6, 1936, another violent tornado struck Gainesville, claiming at least 203 lives. Gainesville is the only town of its size to be so devastated twice by tornadoes in its history.[13]