April 22, 1912 Jefferson County Tornado

From The Birmingham News, April 22, 1912, pg. 1:

Several Persons Killed, Many More Injured And Many Houses Demolished

Furious Wind Storm Visits Mining Camps of Jefferson County.

Republic, Ala., April 22. – The storm which struck Blossburg, Brookside and Mineral Springs between 4 and 5 o’clock this morning, blew down many houses occupied by negroes.

             Eleven negroes were hurt, three fatally. One white man was killed in Blossburg and one baby fatally hurt near Pinckney City. One man was killed in Mineral Springs.

  Injured Negroes Brought In.

             Nine negroes, men, women and children, all seriously injured and some of them fatally hurt, were brought to Birmingham Monday afternoon about two o’clock from Pinckney City. They were carried to St. Vincent’s Hospital.

             Representative C.A. O’Neill spent Sunday night at Pinckney City. He says the cyclone struck that territory at 3:30 o’clock and continued, to the best of his judgment, about seven minutes. He says the Greek Catholic church, the white Baptist church and two negro churches were blown away. The territory over which the cyclone passed is devastated and the property loss is heavy.

Wide Path Swept By Storm.

A terrific cyclone passed over the coal mining section of the western part of Jefferson county Monday morning between 4 and 5 o’clock, and meagre reports are coming in to the effect that in addition to heavy loss of property, twelve or fifteen lives were lost.

             Information received by the Louisville & Nashville railroad this afternoon was to the effect that five persons had been killed at Cardiff; a negro killed and fifteen houses demolished at Brookside; ten houses blown down at Mineral Springs; and that Pinckney City was practically wiped off the map.

             At Brookside a bulldog was blown through a window into a room where a negro was sleeping. At Praco a negro was killed. The storm swept a wide path between Colta and Laduco, destroying everything in its way.

             The Southern Railway train dispatching office reports that while wires were down up to noon, trainmen who had passed Brookside during the morning had brought in reports that at that place alone fifteen to twenty houses had been blown down and a number of people killed.

             Brookside is seventeen miles west of Birmingham. There are no mines in operation there, but the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company has a big battery of coke ovens, with mines at Crocker and Cardiff, a short distance away.

             Vice President J.W. McQueen, of the Sloss-Sheffield Company, when asked as to his reports from the scene of the storm, said that his information came from the railroad offices and was to the effect that twelve or fifteen people had been killed at Brookside alone.

  All Wires Down.

Men coming in during the morning state that the storm struck Adamsville, Jugtown, Pinckney City, Brookside and other places. The telephone and telegraph wires were down and the information coming in during the morning was very meagre.

             The Southern Railway and the Louisville and Nashville railroad reported wires in trouble and that they were doing everything possible to straighten out the difficulty.

             Brookside is on the west side of Five Mile creek. On the other side of the creek, the company property is located. The little town is compactly built, the houses, with one or two exceptions, being of wooden structure.

             Adamsville is several miles from Brookside and is not quite so large a place.

  Houses Blown Away.

             Fences and other property were blown away, according to information received in the city during the morning. It is estimated that not less than fifty houses and many barns have been blown down and many people injured or killed.

             The Pratt Consolidated Coal Company, when asked for information, had very little to give out, beyond the fact that a storm had struck some of its mining camps and had prostrated the telephone and telegraph wires. No serious trouble happened at Banner, where the state convicts are at work.

Report of Mine Explosion

Reports of the storm got out in the city, and for a while there were rumors of a mine catastrophe. At the office of the state mine inspector it was said that no trouble in the mines had occurred, and that the storm had been mistaken for an explosion.

             L.W. Friedman, staff representative of The Birmingham News, made the trip to Brookside, leaving Birmingham shortly before 11 o’clock. He is making the trip in a Buick runabout, driven by Monk Bardos, of the Highland garage.

             At Green’s station, on the Birmingham Mineral railroad, the storm of Monday morning reached almost the velocity of a hurricane. F.L. Moses, who came to Birmingham from that place Monday, reported that one small frame house was blown down and that many large trees were uprooted. The storm was not cyclonic in its nature, but, as in Birmingham, came in a series of heavy squalls from a northerly direction. No one was reported injured in that neighborhood.