New York Times, 29 Mar 1890. "Awful work of the south-western tornadoes. A Vast Tract Devastated. The Loss of Life in Louisville, however, not so great. "It is now believed that not more than 150 persons were killed there - Metropolis, Ill., and Bowling Green, KY., said to have been wiped out and the number of lives lost tremendous. "While reports of the work done by the dreadful tornado which struck Louisville, Ky., and other places in that State, Illinois, and Tennessee on Thusday sent out that night proved to have been greatly exaggerated, the extent of the calamity as far as loss of life is concerned is still sufficiently great to be appalling. Late last night it was reported that in Louisville not more than 150 persons had lost their lives, and in an official addess to the people of that afflicted city the number was placed at only 75. "Telegraph communication with the other stricken places - and with Louisville, also, to some extent - is still in a very demoralized condition, and reports from Metropolis, Ill., and Bowling Green, Ky., are the most meagre nature as to details. Bowling Green, a town with a population of 5,000, is reported to have been almost entirely destroyed, and it is also said that the loss of life at that place was very great. "From Metropolis comes the bare statement that the town was struck by a furious tornado, that hundreds of live were lost, and that hundreds of lives were lost, and that hundreds of houses had been demolished by the gales. That is all the news that has been received from either of those two places in which the most damage - aside from Louisvile - has been done, but it is probable that more definite information concerning the condition of the towns will be received this morning. "The storm from which these tornadoes, occurring at almost the same time but in such widely separated localities, sprung, has been carefully watched by the Signal Service authorities for almost three days. It began last Wednesday in the southwestern part of Nebraska, and since that time it has traveled eastward a distance of almost 2,000 miles. At 6 o'clock last night its centre was over Erie, Penn., and still traveling east, though at a much lower rate of speed than that with which it sped through the Western Sates through which it passed. "The storm covered a space in point of width occupying about 1,500 miles, and from its various "branches" sprang the tornadoes which have worked such awful havoc. That particular tornado which was felt so severely in Kentucky covered, apparently, a distance of about 130 miles and an average distance in width of about half a mile. It came from the southwest, traveling in a zig-zag way to the northeast. "The Illinois tornado and that which struck towns in tennessee seems to have been an entirely different blast, caused b local atmospheric conditions. It appeared in Metropolis, and within a very short time in the upper portion of Tennessee." Sandi's Puzzlers: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html SCKY Links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html GGP: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/