March 19, 1930 Headland-Henry County Tornado

From The Wiregrass Farmer, Headland, Alabama, March 20, 1930, pg. 1:

‘Baby Cyclone’ Damages Property; Smokestack Injures Watchman

A “baby cyclone” which came out of the northwest Tuesday night served as a reminder to Headland people of the “grown-up” cyclone which struck the community with such force in the spring of 1912. The path of the wind led from the J.T. Knowles farm, across the Kelly and Livingston estates, across the Experiment Farm, and on out of the community by way of the Farmer settlement. The storm was preceded by sheet lightning, every flash of which was recorded by local radios. Then the wind suddenly whipped into a fury, blew and howled for a moment or two, and in a downpour of driving rain passed before alarmed citizens could seek the safety of their storm cellars.

             Mr. M.W. Dunlap, night watchman of the Home Fertilizer and Cotton Oil Company, was the unluckiest person, apparently, in the storm’s path. The wind toppled over that plant’s big smokestack, and as luck would have it he was directly beneath its line of descent. It is reported that Mr. Dunlap’s back is broken, and that several broken ribs have penetrated one lung. Friends who visited him Wednesday afternoon at a Dothan hospital said that he recognized and talked with them, but that, as was to be expected, he appeared to be suffering great pain.

             Mr. Knowles’ home place was left intact, but besides doing damage to tenant houses the wind picked up a nicely stacked pile of lumber and scattered it over an adjoining field. A tenant home on the S.O. Kelly farm was blown from its blocks. The chimneys of the Livingston home were blown off even with the roof. It was in this locality that a giant oak tree was uprooted and blown across the Headland-Newville road. Several tenant houses along this route were more or less badly damaged, without, however, any serious injury to the tenants themselves. The Ross Holland home also was damaged to some extent. The damage to the oil mill buildings, according to Mr. Shelly, will run around $800, caused by the falling smokestack and wind damage to roofs.

             The next farm directly in the pathway of the storm was that of the Wiregrass Experiment Station. Mr. and Mrs. J.P. Wilson had as their guest for the night Mr. J.B. Wilson, of Auburn, and the blustery weather had naturally turned the talk to cyclones and the laws under which they operate. The three were sitting in the brick and cement office building when the wind struck, and Mr. Wilson had been narrating some of the effects of the 1912 cyclone. His guest had no sooner remarked that “it is lucky that cyclones never strike twice in the same place” than the full force of the wind hit the plantation. The poultry house, containing a number of fine White Leghorn hens, was picked up, carried fifty feet or more, where the flooring was then ripped away and “wrapped nicely around the office building.” A turkey hen was left sitting composedly on her nest of eggs underneath the poultry house. Not an egg was broken. Another strange whimsy of the winds was that a small hog pen, tightly nailed together, was completely demolished. The two hogs inside were unhurt, but the trough was blown a distance of 200 yards. Mr. Wilson estimates the damage to the poultry house, tenant dwellings, and other outhouses at $2,000.

             The final act of the wind, so far as the Headland community is concerned, was the wrecking of the Bethlehem Baptist Church, in the Farmer community. Information is that this building was so badly damaged that probably it will be unprofitable to repair it.

             While these incidents were occurring in a northerly direction from Headland, a negro house on the other side of town was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, in spite of the heavy rain that was falling.