City laid waste : tornado devastation at Gainesville, Ga., April 6, 1936 / compiled by W.M. Brice.

A CITY LAID WASTE
3T/&
TORNADO DEVASTATION AT
G A I NESVILLE, GA.
APRIL 6, 1936
— ILLUSTRATIONS OF DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUC-
TION — PHOTOS OF THE STORM VICTIMS — AMAZING
FREAKS — PERSONAL EXPERIENCES — VITAL STATISTICS —
HUMOROUS INCIDENTS — INTERESTING STATEMENTS —
WSB’S PART IN THE STORM — MEMORIALS TO VICTIMS —
FIRMS RESUMING BUSINESS
COMPILED BY
W. M. BRICE
A LIFETIME RESIDENT
Gainesville Correspondent The Atlanta Journal and Associated Press
Copyright 193 6
By W. M. BRICE
Gainesville, Ga.
This Book Is Dedicated To
GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA
"Queen City of the Mountains”
And Gateway to the Blue Ridge
Her Notable Past
Her Present Opportunities
Her Promise of a Glorious Future
IN appreciation
?
The evidence of interest in this book manifested by my friends in and out of the
state is sincerely appreciated. This has been shown in many ways, among the most con-
crete of which has been their willingness to assist in the task.
It has been a much bigger job than I anticipated, bigger than one can imagine who
has not attempted a similar work, more especially because of the necessity for accuracy
of detail and assembling of facts, figures and photographs. I have striven to make it as
accurate and complete as possible in every way, but of course the magnitude of such a
disaster would require a much larger publication than this to cover all its phases
adequately.
If there should appear any deviation from actual figures or records, such is uninten-
tional on the part of the author, and if there should be a failure to give credit where so
much credit is due it is because of the almost impossible task of gathering all the facts
and mentioning each personality or organization who had so much to do with helping
us during our great need.
To each and every one who has so greatly assisted me in preparing this book, with
contributions to its pages, with photographs, with valued suggestions, I will always be
profoundly grateful, for without this help it would not have been possible to carry it to
a successful conclusion.

* Page 6
VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT TORNADOS
This Will Tell You What to Do
When One Comes
Particular attention is called to the following
definition of a tornado as given in Webster’s
New International Dictionary, and especially the
last sentence, since some striking illustrations along
this line are found in this work:
N

0
TORNADO—1. A thunderstorm, or, loosely,
any violent windstorm. 2. Hence (under the in-
fluence of the supposed deviation from L. tornarey
to turn): Meteor a. The arched squall off the west
coast of Africa in which the violent wind revolves
beneath a broad arch of threatening clouds,
analogous to the gust that precedes any severe
thunderstorm, b. A funnel-shaped cloud, like a
waterspout, sand column or dust whirl, with very
violent and destructive eddies and whirls of wind,
progressing in a narrow path for many miles over
the land. It occurs in all parts of the Mississippi
watershed. The wind is too violent to be meas-
ured, and the barometric pressure falls so rapidly
that wooden structures are often lifted and burst
open by the air confined within them.
George W. Mindling, meteorologist of the
United States Department of Agriculture, upon
being asked to furnish a statement as to how we
may know the nature of tornadoes and what best
to do upon the approach of one, supplies the fol-
lowing:
"For your discussion I offer you the following
paragraphs on the matter of safety in a tornado:
"On the occurrence of a tornado one’s personal
safety is either his good luck or the result of the
exercise of quick, sound judgment. The so-called
'cyclone cellars’ have probably been the means of
saving more lives in tornadoes than any other class
of places of refuge. The usefulness of these dug-
outs or outdoor caves has been abundantly demon-
strated in open, level country, where the approach
of a tornado is quite likely to be seen, especially
by those who are cautious on the approach of a
thunderstorm when the air has been particularly
warm and oppressive.
"A ditch by the roadside or other depression in
the ground has been utilized for safety in a good
many instances. One should try to avoid places
where he can be struck by flying timbers, falling
trees, or other wreckage. In the open country it
is sometimes easily possible to run out of the way
of the tornado, the most favorable location to seek
being to the northwest side of the tornado’s path.
"In a city where there is little or no oppor-
tunity to see the approaching tornado at a di-
stance, the tendency is to seek refuge within a
building owing to the great danger from flying
objects in the open, though there may be little
choice between the danger inside and outside.
Within a frame building, probably the best place
is next to the southwest wall or corner of the base-
ment. In an old brick or stone building, how-
ever, a position near any outside wall is likely to
prove more dangerous than next to an inner par-
tition wall, as the outside walls are most likely
to collapse. Indoor protection has sometimes been
found under strong counters, workbenches, barber
chairs, etc. If access can be had to a bank vault,
its protection should be sought forthwith.
"The better buildings constructed of heavy
masonry and those with steel framework usually
come through tornadoes with comparatively small
damage, and these should be chosen in preference
to poorer buildings if they can be reached.”
CORDELE LOSS IS LARGE
Twenty-one lives were lost in the tornado which
struck Cordele, Georgia, on April 2, and over 200
people were injured. Cost of rehabilitation in the
devastated area was estimated by E. T. Murray,
agency examiner of the NEC, at $670,000.00.
POWER OFF IN ONE MINUTE
C. D. Young, manager of the Gainesville di-
vision of the Georgia Power Company, undoubt-
edly saved many lives by his quick action in shut-
ting off the current from lines of the company in
Gainesville. Although the offices and retail store
of the company, located on Main street, were al-
most completely demolished and Mr. Young was
in the building at the time, he immediately got
out and ran the half-block to the sub-station on
Maple street and cut off the power from the
3 8,000-volt line leading to the city. It took him
"less than a minute” to get there, as he expressed
it, for he realized that many human lives depended
upon quick action.
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Top, looking from Federal Building toward Courthouse. Center, one of the many
cars buried in debris. Bottom, one of city's wrecked buildings.
Photo Courtesy Gainesville Photographic Studio
* Page 8
'
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Georgian-American
a Telling of the Tragedy—Asking for Help
Believing many readers will be interested, I
relate here for the first time in print my own
experiences in giving first news of this event,
which has been called "the biggest news story since
the Lindbergh kidnaping,” to The Atlanta Journal
and Associated Press.
As soon as the storm had passed and the deluge
of rain began descending, my wife and I went onto
the front veranda, where we could see portions of
the wreckage which had been a beautiful city five
minutes before.
Seeing the court house, city hall and practically
all the business district—near which we live—was
in ruins, knowing the water mains were useless and
the fire department buried, watching huge funnels
of black smoke billowing into the low clouds from
two business blocks, one of my first thoughts was
to try to get help from outside.
Quieting my wife as best I could, I ran for my
car, which was parked about a block away due to
paving operations on my street. I got in and drove
up to West Broad street, half a block away, and
turned toward Buford, eighteen miles distant,
which I thought would be the nearest place to
reach The Journal, and WSB, the bi
station of that paper.

y
^ Page 9
Just as I turned into the street I could see that
homes all along were demolished, and farther over
on West Avenue and West Washington street they
were swept clean. Hundreds of people were run-
ning, screaming, crying, bloody and wet, in every
direction.
A couple ran up to my car just as I turned into
West Broad. Both were wet as water could make
them. The lady was bloody and limping. They
were Mr. and Mrs. Astor (Shorty) Buice, who had
been in the grocery store of the latter’s father,
Mr. C. J. Conner, immediately in front of the
court house. They were trying to get to the home
of Mrs. Buice’s parents two miles out the Atlanta
highway. Mr. Buice grabbed the door handle of my
car and begged me to take them.
I opened the door, they got in, and while we
were going through the driving deluge of rain and
hail they told me something of their gruelling ex-
perience, something of the awful scenes through
which they had come. While we were on the way,
it occurred to me I might get a message through
to Atlanta over the telephone at the Southern rail-
way station in the southern section of the city,
which had apparently escaped the storm’s fury.
I turned back to Gainesville after I had carried
Mrs. Buice to her parents’ home, Mr. Buice return-
LIBRARIES
W Of lirW&^
Wreckage on South Main street near the City Hall.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Constitution
ing with me to help the wounded and stricken.
I had previously learned, just as I left town, that
members of our immediate family were safe.
Turning from West Broad street near my home,
I managed to get over the flooded side streets to
the railway station. Just as I rushed in a man who
had the little headpiece of the railroad’s phone over
his head turned to face me. I immediately told
him who I was and what I wanted. He was Mr.
Mark Taylor, telephone maintenance man of the
Southern’s lines in this territory.
He handed me the headpiece, saying he had just
been trying to get Atlanta through Inman Yards,
asking the operator to "Get 800,” which is the
Atlanta operator. He said he was trying to get
The Journal then.
Almost immediately after I took the receiver I
got the Atlanta operator, and it seemed not over a
minute until I was talking to Ed Bradley at The
Journal office. I tried as best I could to describe to
him what had occurred, as I sat there looking to-
ward the business section where blocks were being
consumed by the flames, making a funeral pyre
for some of the best friends of my life, and where
I knew other hundreds were dead, dying and badly
injured—hundreds whom I had known since child-
hood.
Mr. Bradley seemed stunned by the horror of
the story I poured through that little phone. He
could hardly believe what I told him, and I remem-
ber saying he would never believe it until he
saw it. I asked that he immediately broadcast it
through WSB, calling on our neighbors wherever
they may hear it for help—more especially doctors,
nurses, ambulances, fire fighting equipment — in
fact anything that would bring a measure of aid,
solace or comfort to a city whose heart had been
torn asunder and laid bare to the merciless ele-
ments.
He said he would do so, and he must have, for
reports came from everywhere as to how quickly
WSB gave the news, breaking off in the middle of
a musical program with the flash, and immediately
calling for the help we so much needed.
While I was talking, people poured into the
room where the company’s telephone and telegraph
were located, frantically trying to get messages
through to relatives in other places. There were
literally hundreds of telegrams piled up in a few
moments, while requests for use of the telephone—
the only one to the outside world then in opera-
tion—were being received every second.
Judge Beaver,' a son of Colonel Sandy Beaver,
president of Riverside Military Academy, came in
while I was talking and, hearing the conversation,
asked that The Journal be requested to call Gov-
ernor Talmadge and urge that he declare martial
law and send troops to Gainesville. While I was
using the phone, operators at Buford, Norcross,
Duluth and other points were on the line, and
occasionally one would ask how they could help,
and I tried, as best I knew how, to tell them.
Photo Courtesy Gainesville Photographic Studio
* Page 12
Piles of wreckage among the soaked center of the public square.
•—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
In just a few moments I left the station, prom-
ising Mr. Bradley I would try to keep in touch
with The Journal and Associated Press as often as
possible throughout the day, to supply the outside
world with fresh details of the disaster. However,
every Atlanta newspaper and many in other cities,
every newsgathering agency, and many movie
newsreel concerns, put their men on the road to
Gainesville almost immediately after WSB flashed
the news, and many had arrived before noon.
The difficulties they encountered — how they
trudged through the rain for miles during the day
and the black nights which followed, stumbling
over wreckage wherever they went, witnessing
scenes which would wring the hardest heart,
snatching a bite to eat whenever their stomachs
would cry out in protest, lying down a few
moments when their tired bodies refused further to
obey their wills—these stories will never be told
except to their loved ones or intimate friends, for
they had only the one idea in mind, to "cover”
the story for their respective employers to the best
of their ability.
It was my privilege to meet and work with
some of the finest fellows in the world in the first
days after the storm. Having lived here all my
life, I was able to save them some steps and supply
them with some needed information.
? Page 13
The Southern Bell Telephone Company estab-
lished emergency phones to the outside world on
West Broad street less than three hours after the
storm, and to these we would walk periodically
through the rain to telephone new details, until
connections were made in the exchange building
on Green street. This building then became
"newspaper men’s headquarters,” and to the kind-
ness, efficiency, courtesy and thoroughness of Mr.
G. C. Reed, manager of the Gainesville exchange,
and his efficient corps of employees, we owe a
lasting debt of gratitude which cannot be repaid
financially.
As nearly as can be determined by electrically
operated clocks which were partially destroyed by
the storm, the devastation at Gainesville took place
at 8:3 8 a. m., Eastern Standard Time, Monday,
April 6. As nearly as I can check through Mr.
Bradley and WSB, it was 9:20—or forty-two min-
utes later that I got the news to the outside
world through the broadcasting facilities of that
station.
This was approximately twenty-five or thirty
minutes sooner than I could possibly have given
the news to The Journal had I continued on to
Buford through the blinding rain and pellets of
hail the size of a small boy’s agate "taw” bouncing
off the hood and windshield of my car.
—The Author.
T &
Top, view from the air of tom business district, Dixie Hunt hotel in center.
Bottom, another air view showing fires of Pruitt-Barrett and Palmour Hardware.
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
Page 14
>
Convicts helping in search among ruins for bodies.
Death and Destruction
A shapeless, black, death - dealing monster,
with tentacles even more ghastly because
they were as wraiths spiraling and spreading,
hovered over the quiet, beautiful, happy city of
Gainesville, Georgia, on the morning of April 6,
1936.
Fringing the edges of the blackness was a
yellowish light rimming the horizon, while an
oppressive heat seemed to beat down—it was as the
hot breath of a fabled dragon just before it ripped
asunder a helpless victim.
There was a stillness as of death—it foreboded
death. Many who witnessed it and lived told of
this omen, of how they remarked to others about
the feeling of uneasiness it created. Many who had
never before witnessed such a condition appeared
to recognize its import, while others who had be-
fore seen just such an impending storm knew it
was coming, but of course could not know where
it would strike nor its intensity.
Presently the wind began to stir the young
leaves of the trees, grass blades began to move,
then there was a low rumbling in the distance,
and the black cloud seemed to merge with the
ground, the trees, the homes, the other buildings.
Then, so swiftly that no one within its imme-
diate path could make any further move to seek
protection, it struck!
* Page 15
Traveling with almost inconceivable velocity,
carrying within its bosom a death-dealing vortex
whose power can only be estimated by the de-
struction wrought, the tornado ripped through the
very heart of this quiet, beautiful little city—
rending, tearing, ripping, wrenching, laying waste
practically everything within its path.
Even outside its direct path, those ghastly
tentacles reached out, dipped down and sucked
within their maws individual homes, individual
places of business—picked them out from among
those nearby, as if in Satanic delight revealing the
potent power of their hellish mother, the Tornado!
Nothing is like the deafening roar of the tor-
nado. Those who have once heard it can never
forget. Those who have not can never know. In-
dividual noises, such as bricks or timbers falling,
are lost in the cataclysm of sound. A tri-motored
plane flying directly overhead is as nothing com-
pared to the volume of sound produced by this
monster of the air.
So swiftly does it travel that destruction in any
one particular spot is almost instantaneous. It has
been estimated by meteorologists that an individual
home or place of business is demolished within 40
seconds. It is true that this tornado delivered its
death-blow from a point three miles west of
Gainesville, where it first struck, to a point four
miles east—a distance of eight miles, counting a
mile for the city limits of Gainesville—within a
span of three minutes or less.
Spreading fanwise at points, the path of the
storm attained a width of almost a mile in some
places, while at others it narrowed down to less
than half that distance. Its greatest width, as
shown by destruction wrought, was from a point
just north of the First Methodist church to a point
within two blocks of the Southern depot. A
straight line from these two points would pass
directly over the public square and the very heart
of the business district.
If it had been humanly possible to map the
path of this storm, no engineer could have traced
it more accurately so as to bring more complete
paralysis to the business district of any city. So
thorough was its work, for example, that not even
a spool of thread nor a pair of socks could be pur-
chased on the public square, center of all business
activity, for more than forty-eight hours after-
ward.
The toll of human life is recorded in the sec-
tion headed "In Memory.” There were 928 in-
jured, and 786 made homeless. (See Red Cross
statistics for all other information.)
Property loss was estimated at $16,000,000.
An eye-witness of the great San Francisco
earthquake has stated that the destruction was
more complete in accordance to proportionate size
than the California disaster.
How Gainesville reacted to such a staggering
blow, after the first brief period of dazed help-
lessness had passed, is related in other chapters
of this work, under the head of "Rising from Ruins
and Ashes.”
PREMONITION SAVED HIS LIFE
W. M. Clark, Gainesville merchant, had a
premonition of the storm which in all probability
saved his life, he states. He had noted the ominous
weather of Sunday, preceding the tornado, and
had told a companion, Beeks Cox, that there would
be a "bad storm” either Sunday night or Monday.
Mr. Clark had suffered considerable injuries in
the storm of June 1, 1903. So on Monday morn-
ing, a few minutes before the twister struck, he
hied himself to a place of safety which he had
previously picked out—the basement of one of the
city’s business buildings. He had not long to
wait, and when it was over it took him a good
while to dig out, but he was unhurt.
? Page 16
Local and volunteer workers cleaning up streets on day of storm.
' Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
Helping Hands in the Time of Need
No SOONER had word gone forth of Gaines-
ville s plight than preparations were begun
to send help from all quarters, and especially from
neighboring cities and towns. Within just a few
moments this help began to arrive, and continued
until the acute need was relieved.
First to arrive on the scene were the officers
and cadets from Riverside Military Academy, "The
Little West Point of the South.” President Sandy
Beaver tells in a fine statement elsewhere in this
book how the institution’s personnel and facilities
were utilized. It was a splendid job these people
did in the first stressful hours after their arrival.
Soon companies of cadets under officers of
North Georgia College at Dahlonega were on the
scene, and they immediately took hold wherever
needed.
Five CCC companies and 700 WPA workers
were dispatched to the city from Fourth Corps
headquarters, under command of Major General
George Van Horn Moseley, Fourth Corps com-
mander. He tells something of their work else-
where in these pages.
Legionnaires from Gainesville, Atlanta and other
points rushed to the scene and performed valuable
services in alleviating the suffering, rescuing the
injured, and other needed work. Ladies of the
* Page 17
Auxiliary found much to do when they arrived,
and this they did without stint or complaint.
Policemen and firemen from many points over
the state came, some in their own cars, and got
busy in the various capacities where they could do
the most good.
William Carl Hunt, assistant manager of the
American Red Cross for the eastern area, was in
Atlanta at the time, and upon learning of the dis-
aster, immediately went into action. He organized
his corps from all over Georgia at once, later bring-
ing in many others from distant points. How
well the work was done is related elsewhere.
Crews from the Georgia Power Company and
the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Com-
pany were soon arriving with their equipment,
while the Western Union and Postal Telegraph
Companies sent crews forthwith. Many men in
these organizations worked unceasingly for long
hours to restore communications with the outside
world, especially emergency lines.
Colonel Owen Allbright, signal officer of the
Fourth Corps Area, sent a short-wave radio outfit
on a truck to aid in communications.
Radio Station WTFI, at Athens, also sent a
short-wave outfit which rendered valuable service
Top, looking from Hall County Jail north toward Courthouse on South Bradford
street. Bottom, first aid station set up by Red Cross ministering to victims of storm.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
* Page 1
Heaps of wreckage on Maple street. Cooper Co. is white building at left.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
to local citizens as well as the many outside
agencies grouped here.
Several amateur radio stations in Gainesville
assisted in clearing anxiety of loved ones away from
Gainesville, and relaying messages to various parts
of the country.
Post Office Inspectors Frank Shumate, Frank
Ellis and Julius Miller hurried to the city to lend
aid in keeping the postal service up to its usual
standard.
Nurses and workmen from Atlanta, Athens
and many other points were assembled by the
WPA for service here, while huge quantities of
food, bedding, cots, supplies and other necessities
were quickly dispatched. This is recounted in
further detail elsewhere.
The Salvation Army early Monday sent two
auto loads of cadets from the training college in
Atlanta, many trained workers, and truckloads of
food, clothing and other provisions. Food kitchens
of this splendid organization dispensed great quan-
tities of warm, wholesome nourishment.
Fred Patterson, of Atlanta, announced Monday
that all members available of the National Fu-
neral Directors’ Association were rushing to
Gainesville. At one time there were seventy-five
ambulances and hearses plying the city, assembled
from points in Georgia and adjoining states.
Nurses, physicians and medical supplies for re-
lieving suffering were soon available to those in
need, and many physicians and nurses from dis-
tant points came in their own cars.
Adjutant General Lindley W. Camp assem-
bled three companies of National Guardsmen to
rush here, and Colonel Thomas L. Alexander, who
commanded them during their eventful stay, re-
lates elsewhere something of the work accom-
plished.
The State Highway Department gave of its
equipment for transportation of guardsmen, food
and clothing, medical supplies and equipment of
all kinds, to points where needed.
Hall County Health Officer C. J. Wellborn
warned the people against using the city water for
drinking purposes. Circulars were posted to this
effect, and every other needed precaution taken
to prevent an epidemic. Thousands of inoculations
for typhoid prevention were given, while tetanus
inoculations continued to be administered for sev-
eral weeks. Health of the populace in the first
months after the storm revealed the thoroughness
of the work, as there was no epidemic of any kind,
and little sickness.
Emergency hospitals were set up at the First
Methodist Church, Chicopee Mills, Riverside Mili-
tary Academy, Pacolet Mills, First Baptist Church.
Patients at the Downey hospital, which was almost
wrecked, were hastily rushed to the new building
erected as a County Almshouse, but which had
not been put into service, where an efficient forty-

? Page 19

bed hospital was established with a trained corps
of surgeons and nurses.
In less than thirty-six hours after the storm,
fourteen receiving stations had been established in
Atlanta to receive supplies and clothing for trans-
fer to Gainesville.
Elsewhere in this book is shown a picture of
the piles of vegetables and foodstuff in front of the
new Federal building on East Spring street, sent
by generous neighbors from points in Georgia and
other states. This was the overflow from the re-
ceiving stations established at the First Methodist
church and other points.
Emergency kitchens were established by the
National Guard, the Red Cross, the Salvation
Army no one was allowed to go hungry or
thirsty if his or her wants were made known.
There was no thought of profiteering. The
few grocery stores which remained intact or even
partially so were kept open by their proprietors,
who sold their supplies as long as they lasted at ex-
actly the former prices. Lamps and candles were
brought into service as the dreary night came on,
and until the late hours trade continued.
In cafes, restaurants and boarding houses the
same conditions prevailed, the thought of profiteer-
ing apparently never being entertained. Practically
all these places remained open night and day for
some time after the storm.
One striking instance of the cooperation ac-
corded was by the huge plants of Bona Allen, Inc.,
Buford, manufacturers of shoes. The owners
ordered the plants closed, and the entire personnel
of the organization was dispatched to Gainesville
to render aid in whatever capacity it should be
needed.
A group of twenty-eight men from Dahlonega,
sons and relatives of miners of the gold-rush days
of that mountain city, assembled and secured
trucks to transport them to Gainesville. They
brought picks and shovels, and as their part gave
their services in preparing graves for interment
of the storm dead.
Atlanta, the capital of the state, raised more
than $150,000 for relief and sent innumerable sup-
plies; Athens, Marietta, Jasper, Canton, Toccoa,
Macon, Augusta, Savannah, Rome—every city in
the state, and hosts of cities outside Georgia—sent
money, food, clothing, supplies. Many business
concerns from distant points who had had deal-
ings with Gainesville people sent individual checks
and also money from their employees.
Events transpired so swiftly on that history-
making Monday, so many generous and sympathy-
inspired people and organizations sped to Gaines-
ville s sustenance, that it was almost impossible
to keep a check upon them in the stress of the
hour. If mention of any one or group has been
here omitted, it is not intentional on the part of
the author. Each and every one has as recompense
in his or her heart the memory of duty well per-
formed, and each knows that the heart of Gaines-
ville goes out in everlasting gratitude.
WORK OF PHYSICIANS PRAISED
Dr. Wilhelm Dekleine, medical head of the
American Red Cross, visited the storm area of
Gainesville late in May, and during the visit made
a statement to local Red Cross officials and another
to physicians which are worthy of note.
He stated to members of his organization that
he had never seen such remarkable courage as
that shown by the Gainesville people in their re-
construction.”
The noted physician was hearty in his praise
of Gainesville physicians, and thanked them per-
sonally at a special meeting held during his visit.
He stated he had never seen such wholehearted
cooperation between doctors and the Red Cross at
any time.”
That his statement regarding the physicians’
work is not overdrawn is fully realized by everyone
in the area, for the emergency was met in a man-
ner worthy of the stamina, resourcefulness and
medical skill of every Gainesville physician and
surgeon, who were nobly assisted in their work by
local nurses and volunteer workers.
TORNADO INSURANCE SMALL
Following examination of records in the offices
of Gainesville life insurance agents, it was found
that a conservative estimate of tornado insurance
carried in both business and residential policies
was less than ten per cent of the loss incurred.
;V:5, Y;V wrniN wV

? Page 20
SHHSMMMiM
Ed Dodd Contributes to Book
The thousands of people who have enjoyed Ed
Dodd’s "Back Home Again” will be inter-
ested to know that he has contributed with his
art to this book. The author asked him if he
would provide a cartoon depicting some phase of
the storm. The drawing below is the result—a
splendid conception of the indomitable spirit which
has been manifested by the citizens of Gaines-
ville.
As in the case with most pictures, this one
tells more than any number of words how the
blow was received and what steps are being taken
to overcome it.
Our sincere gratitude to Mr. Dodd for his
fine contribution toward making this record more
complete.
THE AUTHOR.
? Page 2}
President Roosevelt speaking from rear platform of train, April 9.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SPEAKS
President Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped
over in Gainesville for half an hour Thursday
night following the storm, to confer with city and
county officials, civic and relief leaders stationed
here as to progress made and help needed. Though
only supposed to hold the conference, the Presi-
dent, upon seeing the crowd which had come to
meet his train, appeared on the platform of the
train and made a brief talk.
My friends,” he said, "it is a sad occasion
that brings this stop of mine to Gainesville. I have
been in touch very closely with this great disaster
that has come to your city, ever since the tornado.
We in the Federal Government have done every-
thing that is in our power to make things more
easy for you.
I want to express to you, all of you, my very
deep sympathy in the great loss of life that has
occurred here. And I particularly want to extend
my sympathy to the families who have lost their
loved ones.
"This particular storm as you know has af-
fected a number of states and many communities.
I have just had a conference in the car with the
leaders — the heads of the various agencies who
have been trying to be of assistance and there are
two things, Ijdfink, that stand out for which we
can be very proud as Americans. The first is that
all of the agencies of all kinds have cooperated,
not only sincerely but with very practical results.
The other thing I want to refer to is the fine spirit
that all of you people in Gainesville have shown—
the way you have cooperated to bring order out
of great chaos and the way you have determined
to rebuild along better and finer lines than ever
before. It makes me very proud of you as
Americans. J
"And so, my friends, I hope to come back
some day at a less tragic time and when I come
back to be able to see a greater and better Gaines-
ville. I shall always be very proud of the spirit
you have shown.”
? Page 24

East Washington street looking north—no sign of storm on May 6.
—Photo by the Author
Rising from Ruins and Ashes
Dazed and stunned by the crushing blow
which had been dealt so swifty, citizens of
Gainesville thought first of the welfare of loved
ones and friends.
With the help of the thousands of sympathetic
ones who quickly assembled in the stricken city,
they ministered to the needs of the homeless and
hungry, attempted to soften the grief of the be-
reft, relieve the sufferings of the injured, and then
went about the sad task of providing a last rest-
ing place for the victims.
When these duties had been performed, they
began to think of restoring to a measure of their
former beauty and utility the homes, places of
business and industry which had within less than
five minutes been reduced to a shambles.
Viewing the ruins of a city which had been
over a hundred years in the building—looking
from the center of the business district at a St^ne
of indescribable wreckage in every direction almost
as far as the natural eye could see—the task seemed
a hopeless one.
It probably would have been a hopeless one to
a people of less fortitude, of less determination, of
less inherent courage than those of Gainesville.
But not so here.
Coordinating every effort toward restoring
from the ruins an even more beautiful, more stur-
dy, more prosperous city than ever, citizens of
both sexes went to work—meeting together, plan-
ning, exchanging ideas and experiences, setting
about in an intelligent and far-sighted manner to
build anew.
So rapid was the progress on construction in
the business district that in many instances, while
debris was being cleared away from one portion of
a building, new construction work was proceed-
ing on other portions. In the residential districts,
the framework of new residences began to rise the
day after the storm, while demolished roofs and
other portions of homes were being restored in
rapid order.
Dr. H. J. Pearce, president of Brenau Col-
lege; John H. Hosch, president of the Citizens
Bank, and Horace Hawkins, prominent oil deal-
er, were discussing the situation on the night of
April 8, two days after the storm, in the Citizens
Bank building. Dr. Pearce suggested a planning
commission, and almost immediately Mr. Haw-
kins found H. H. Estes, president of the Chamber
of Commerce, who agreed to call a meeting of that
body to perfect the plan.
* Page 25
South Main street on morning of April 6—a scene of ruin.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Constitution
This meeting was held May 9, the commission
was formed with Judge A. C. Wheeler as chair-
man, and thereafter its members met each night
for two weeks, and many times in the day time.
Meeting with them were city and county commis-
sioners, government engineers and other officials
and citizens.
Out of these meetings were evolved plans for
the city’s future welfare, the outcome of which
will be stamped upon Gainesville’s future as per-
manently as the influence of the lives of the men
who conceived them.
Five days after the storm, or on Friday, April
10, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation had
established an office in the Federal building with
Mr. W. J. Davis in charge, and the National
Emergency Council also had an office in the same
building with Mr. David S. Cuttino, Jr., as di-
rector.
At the time the services of a corps of govern-
ment engineers and architects to aid in planning
reconstruction and rehabilitation had been secured.
This corps of government experts was directed by
Lieutenant Colonel Brehon B. Somervell.
Besides proving of tremendous help in the pro-
gram of reconstruction, these men worked out and
proposed a plan for a Civic Center and other im-
provements in the business district which was
unanimously adopted at a mass meeting at the
High School building on Monday night, April 27.
Most important among the changes outlined
was the Civic Center, which proposed to line up
the three administrative buildings — the federal
building, courthouse and city hall—in successive
blocks bounded on the north by East Washington
street, on the south by Church street, on the east
by South Green street and on the west by South
Bradford street.
Other changes proposed were: A hospital and
community library on the east side of South
Green street facing the courthouse; a school audi-
torium on the Castleberry lot on West Washing-
ton street; a bus terminal on the former city hall
site; widening of some streets in the business dis-
trict.
Judge A. C. Wheeler presided at the meeting
in which the changes were proposed. Speaking in
favor of the proposition were Dr. H. J. Pearce,
president of Brenau College; Edgar B. Dunlap,
attorney for Pacolet, Gainesville Mills, Chicopee,
Georgia Power Company and Gainesville Midland
railway; Henry H. Estes, president of the Cham-
ber of Commerce; W. V. Lance, attorney, and
A. S. Hardy, past president of the Chamber of
Commerce. G. Fred Kelley, county attorney, out-
lined the county’s part. Erie Cocke, of the RFC,
? Page 2 6
South Main street on morning of May 6—one month later.
—Photo by the Author

J. Houston Johnson and Mr. R. L. MacDougald,
were included in the speakers.
Lieutenant Colonel Clarence E. Boesch as rep-
resentative of the engineers presented the proposed
plan to the mass meeting.
Following the talks, the plan was proposed to
the meeting and adopted unanimously. Steps were
taken shortly thereafter to put it into execution,
and in May both the city and county commission-
ers had named men to act for them in condem-
nation proceedings looking toward securing the
property involved.
Mr. MacDougald announced the day following
the meeting that $100,000 had been allocated
and approved by the WPA in Washington to
initiate the work to be done on the city hall and
streets of the city. Included in this was widening
of the streets, rehabilitation of the electric light-
ing system, with a whiteway for the business
section.
The Civic Center as proposed would cost ap-
proximately $150,000, the engineers estimated, a
portion of which could be taken care of by the
federal government. It would necessitate raising
approximately $115,000 more by the city and
county than was then in sight—$75,000 by the
county, $40,000 by the city.
According to the opinion of those best in-
formed concerning the proposed project, this
would prove the greatest step toward beautifica-
? Page 27
tion for permanence ever taken by the city and
county, and provide concrete evidence of the
indomitable spirit of our citizens to rebuild anew
upon a broader, sturdier scale, while enhancing
the esthetic features as well.
The program of rehabilitation moved with
amazing speed once the machinery was put in
operation. So thorough was the organization, so
accurately was each detail worked out, the well-
oiled machinery moved so smoothly at Gaines-
ville, Atlanta and Washington, as to provide almost
immediate assistance to those needing it. Emer-
gency legislation authorizing an increased appro-
priation of $50,000,000 for storm and flood relief
was approved April 10, and on the same day the
first batch of applications for RFC loans was dis-
patched from the Gainesville office. These received
approval in Washington the following Monday,
April 13—just a week after the storm.
Up to the latter part of May, applications for
loans filed amounted in round numbers to $1,-
500,000, and practically every one of them had
been approved only a few days after their receipt
in Washington.
During the same period, in the offices of the
National Emergency Council, 313 applications had
been received from those desiring to repair or re-
place damaged property. Total estimated amount
involved in these applications was $413,618. These
included mostly residences and small business
The public square—note car in circle, blown by wind; car tops skinned off.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Georgian-American
buildings, not including some of the larger projects
upon which plans were incomplete. Equally swift
approval was accorded these projects.
These figures did not include any part of the
proposed Civic Center, nor did they include the
immense amount in private capital which was in-
vested in replacement and rehabilitation, not
coming under the head of the RFC and WPA.
These amounts would probably bring the total to
about $3,000,000, according to the best judgment
of those accurately informed. Pacolet Manufac-
turing Company was also spending $1,2 50,000 at
New Holland at the same time.
In the meantime, the influx of capital for
these various purposes, together with the amount
being spent in other phases of rehabilitation,
brought about a tremendous increase in bank
deposits and clearings at the three Gainesville
banks. Each of the banks, located on the public
square, was badly damaged by the storm. Hastily
repairing their respective buildings, all three opened
their doors for business on Thursday, April 9.
Combined deposits of the banks on the day of
the storm were in round numbers $1,800,000. On
May 6, one month later, these had increased to
$2,575,000 — a step-up of approximately 3 0%.
At the same time, bank clearings for the district
had shown an increase of between 50% and 60%.
This record was achieved within twenty-three
working days.
At that time payrolls were being handled by
the banks amounting to over $100,000 weekly,
directly through contractors, besides a large
amount through private capital.
Receipts at the Gainesville post office increased
at such a rapid pace during the first four weeks
after the storm that it was necessary to add two
additional postal employees to take care of the
volume of business.
These figures are cited because they present
concrete evidence of the speed with which the
program was carried out, especially in the business
district. Photos taken by the author on May 6,
one month after the storm, presented in this book
for the first time, tell more graphically than any
words the story of Gainesville’s rise from ruins
and ashes.
SPIRIT IS TRULY MARVELOUS
Henry M. Baker, director of the Gainesville
and Tupelo (Miss.) areas of the American Red
Cross, makes the following intensely interesting
comment on the Gainesville situation:
"Rarely does a disaster affect either directly or
indirectly such a large percentage of the populace
as did the tornado which struck Gainesville, Ga.,
Monday, April 6, 193 6. It is reliably stated that
nearly every family in this beautiful community
of approximately ten thousand people had either a
relative, a friend, or an acquaintance among the
A Page 28
The public square a month afterward—building goes forward.
dead or the injured. In spite of the appalling loss
of life and frightful devastation to business es-
tablishments and homes, the spirit of these people
has been truly marvelous. Never in my disaster
experiences of over sixteen years have I found a
community more courageous and more united than
Gainesville. It typifies American life. It is an in-
spiration to work with these people. With one
accord they have united to assist the grief-
stricken and help the injured and rebuild a more
beautiful city upon the wreckage of the old.
"The Red Cross staff has received every pos-
sible assistance from the community. The atmos-
phere is that of one big family working together
to help those members who have been injured.
Religious, social, fraternal and other groups have
given unstinted service.
"When the final chapter of the rehabilitation
of Gainesville, Georgia, is written, it will repre-
sent one more brilliant page in the history of re-
construction and the rehabilitation of a thriving
home-like American city.”
‘HIGHLY COMMENDABLE,”
SAYS BONDY
—Photo by the Author
loss of life inflicted on this city, and today when I
see the progress that has been made, the business
section rebuilt, and work progressing on the resi-
dential sections, the spirit of determination and
cooperation, Ijimply must congratulate the people
of Gainesville for displaying the greatest spirit I
have ever encountered in Red Cross work.”
HUNT PRAISES SPIRIT
William Carl Hunt, in charge of Red Cross
activities at Gainesville following the storm, ad-
dressed the Kiwanis Club at the luncheon meeting
of April 15, commending the members for con-
tinuing their meetings, and said in part:
"I have never seen such a spirit of cooperation
and determination as manifested in Gainesville
since the tornado. The citizens, the citizens’ co-
ordination committee, the WPA, CCC, Legion-
naires and everyone placed their organizations at
our disposal to be used as we saw fit. This co-
operation aided greatly as all were headed by ex-
perienced Red Cross men who are familiar with
relief work and know how to go about setting up
relief and rescue work.”
The spirit displayed by Gainesville people is
most unusual and is highly commendable,” said
Robert E. Bondy, national director of disaster re-
lief, upon his second visit to the city May 18.
I do not see how it could be improved upon
and do not understand how the people here so
easily readjusted themselves with a progressive
spirit, considering the terrific losses incurred by
everyone. I was here four weeks ago with Ad-
miral Grayson and saw the terrific damage and
STORM WAS MENTAL ANAESTHETIC
That the storm acted as a mental anaesthetic,
numbing temporarily certain faculties by its un-
believable intensity, is an established fact. Men
and women who were injured so badly as to be
almost at the point of death made no complaint
when wounds were sewn up, and worked amid the
wreckage unmindful of cuts and lacerations which
under ordinary circumstances would have been
cause for excruciating pain.
tiiifc* * iifit * ¦
Air view of business district with public square adjoining tire at left. Belov/,
another shot from above showing fire in The Hub and Jake Sacks' in left center.
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
* Page 3 0
OF course, it is utterly impossible to relate
even a good portion of the freaks of such a
storm, but I will attempt to give some idea in the
following paragraphs of the crushing power, the
intensity, the devastating thoroughness of the wind
which laid waste a beautiful city in less than five
minutes’ time.
One of the most striking examples of this
power was exhibited in the destruction of the court
house. The one-ton bronze bell in the court house
tower, which had spoken in its deep, mellow tones
each of the twenty-four hours for the past fifty-
three years, was carried through the air, across
South Green street, across East Spring street, and
deposited against a corner of the home of Mrs.
Nell M. Pope, more than three hundred yards
from the spot where it had hung.
The bell in the city hall, which had for over
thirty years sounded the fire alarms for Gaines-
ville, was lifted into the air, carried more than
one hundred fifty feet and crashed through the
roof of the Birdsey Flour Mills Store on South
Bradford street. It is 31 inches across, 21 inches
high, weighs over six hundred pounds, and is
made of steel and bronze. Shortly afterward this
store was rebuilt and resumed operations. Britt
* Page 3 3
Martin, a brother-in-law of City Manager Fred
Roark, who has had charge of this store for
seven years, found that by striking the bell with
a heavy stick he could make its tones be heard
for blocks away. Immediately thereafter he took
up, with the fire bell, where the court house bell
had left off, and with his stock for some time,
while he was on duty, tolled the hours that all
within earshot might know the correct time.
The day following the storm, W. M. Boyles,
who operates the Mary Lou Cafe opposite the Post
Office, had difficulty in making a fire burn in his
large range. Finally the stove pipe was taken down
and a long piece of timber, four inches square,
was removed from the pipe. It had struck in the
opening of the pipe in such a way as to be rammed
down into the stove.
The St. Paul Church was a large edifice on
Grove street. An eye witness told Rev. E. C. Swet-
nam, former pastor, that the building was lifted
bodily into the air and burst open like a fire-
cracker. Although the church contained heavy
pews, three pianos and an organ, only one piece
of it of any size has ever been found. That was
Some Freaks of the Storm
One-ton courthouse bell blown 350 yards. Miss Gladys Tanner beside it.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
Top, P. T. Browning, of Gainesville, surveying wrecked car in front of Darnell's
Dress Shop. Below, car blown into hole left by uprooted tree on Brenau Avenue.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
? Page 34
Cars in yards of Gainesville Midland railway are demolished.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Georgian-American
the back of one of the pianos, discovered by Mr.
Swetnam several blocks from the site of the
church. He knew it because one of the boys of
his former congregation had carved his name on
the back.
A singular fact in connection with the storms
in this vicinity is that every storm of any conse-
quence which has struck Gainesville within the
past half a century has come on Monday, and in
the day time.
A peculiar way of obtaining benefit from the
storm was exhibited by one dirty, but enterprising
urchin, who on Tuesday, April 7, gathered arm-
fuls of the copper wire which littered the streets,
piled it up and burned away the insulation, then
sold it.
Standing sentinel in the center of the public
square, the huge monument to the deceased of
"The Lost Cause” of the Confederacy escaped the
ravages of the storm unscathed. Not even a chip
was taken from it by the flying pieces of timber,
brick and galvanized iron which flew around it.
The left-hand column on the front of the monu-
ment supporting the heroic figure, symbolic of a
Rebel soldier, was wrenched slightly askew.
Gibbs Carter, of Toccoa, had his first inti-
mation that the storm had struck Gainesville
when he picked up some billheads with a Gaines-
ville address on them which dropped at his feet
seventeen minutes after the storm struck. Toccoa
is over forty miles from Gainesville.
All lines of communication leading out of the
city, both telephone and telegraph, were silenced
except those at the Southern Railway station, one
mile from the public square.
A huge steel drum used for transporting oil
was found sitting in an upright position in the
Gainesville News office next to a table containing
a typewriter. It was never dscovered from whence
it came.
Type forms of the Gainesville News still re-
mained on the press Monday morning. Upon ex-
amination it was found that a brick-bat was rest-
ing squarely in the middle of the front page.
A telephone pole on East Spring street, where
destruction was terrific, was so twisted by the
force of the gales that it resembled a huge cork-
screw. It still remained upright.

? Page 3 5
An immense tree which stood in the yard of
the H. H. Perry home place at the corner of
Brenau avenue and Boulevard, was blown down.
The automobile of Mr. Flanagan was blown into
the chasm left when the roots pulled loose, and
then mounted half way up the upraised roots of
the tree.
J. R. Elder, who operates a filling station and
grocery store on West Broad street, was given a
check on the Sunday following the storm by a
man from Inman, S. C., who stated it dropped
near his home there on Friday, April 10 th—five
days after the storm. The check had been issued
by the Hall County Commissioners, July 13, 193 5,
to Elden Myers. It was not wet.
When Mrs. A. Warren Elrod was flung against
the floor of the Piedmont Greenhouses on West
Washington street, her pocketbook was snatched
from under her arm. When it was found that
afternoon by her husband one of the zippers had
been ripped off and the contents were soaked.
Homer Sears, who was employed at Crowe’s
Recreation Parlor on South Main street, which
place was demolished, said when he was able to
get back to town: "My back looks liks a railroad
track, it has so many cuts on it.”
Rich Hawkins and Homer Luther lived in ad-
joining houses on East Broad street, two blocks
from the public square. Both homes were de-
molished and Mr. Luther’s home burned to the
ground. Mr. Hawkins had a passenger car and a
truck in his garage at the rear of his home. The
truck was blown seventy-five yards in an easterly
direction, beyond Mr. Luther’s home. The car
was blown against the rear of Mr. Luther’s home
and destroyed by fire. Mr. Luther’s car was sucked
from his garage in a westerly direction and was
discovered in a wrecked condition, but still up-
right on its wheels, in the midst of what remained
of Mr. Hawkins’ garage.
H. F. Percy” Burtz, who lost his wife and
daughter in the storm, and whose home on West
Avenue was completely demolished, received
through the mail a few days after the storm a post
card addressed to his wife at 46 Rainey street,
where they had lived many years before. He in-
stantly recognized it as a card which had been sent
to Mrs. Burtz by a niece almost twenty years be-
fore. She had kept it in a trunk in their home.
On the back of the card these words were written:
"Picked up April 7th by D. T. Davis, Liberty,
S. C., R.F.D.” Liberty is about eighty miles from
Gainesville.
Twenty-five people rushed into a house at New
Holland seeking safety when they saw the storm
approaching. The building was picked up, moved
more than twenty-five feet from its foundation,
but none of the occupants were injured.
Three small negroes rushed under the front
steps of their home in terror as the storm’s roar ap-
proached. The house and all foundations were
blown away, leaving only the front steps and the
little negroes unharmed.
Portions of the huge sign which had extended
the full length of the Pacolet Manufacturing Com-
pany’s mill at New Holland were picked up at
Easley, S. C., more than eighty-five miles away,
while pieces of stationery were found as far away
as Tucapaw Mills, S. C., near Spartanburg, 130
miles distant.
The heavy transformers of the Georgia Power
Company’s sub-station on Maple Street were
moved about near the building like men on a
huge checker board.
HEN SURVIVES FORTY-SEVEN DAYS
WPA workers uncovered an even more re-
markable hen story than that related by Charley
Holland. While working clearing away debris on
Friday, May 22, they uncovered a box at the rear
of the home of Mr. J. D. Rucker, 63 West Wash-
ington street, and found therein a red hen, still
alive. She weighed only about a pound, but could
still run, though in erratic circles. Mr. Rucker’s
home was destroyed and he had moved to Oak
street. He got the hen and took her home, where
she drank about a pint of water, some of which
ran out as fast as she would drink, he said, but she
kept right on drinking. An egg was found in the
box, and the theory of Marvin Bell and Roy Parks,
who were called to witness the event, was that she
had eaten her own eggs to find sustenance during
her forty-seven day imprisonment.
Remains of home of City Commissioner H. Leon Gaines, East Broad street.
—Photo by the Author
Personal Experiences in the Storm
Arthur Smith, retired Gainesville business
man and formerly associated with his father,
R. Smith, in the crockery and hardware business
here, said that on the morning of the storm his
trusty old Chrysler, which he had been driving for
ten years, refused to crank for the first time. He
had started to Pruitt-Barrett Hardware Company to
buy some farm equipment—he now runs a large
farm—and was very much provoked as he watched
the clouds gathering. In about the length of time
it would have taken him to be in Pruitt-Barrett’s
store, the storm struck, demolished that establish-
ment and initiated the fire which completely de-
stroyed it.
After Mr. Smith realized where he would have
been had his car cranked as usual, he was telling
a friend on the street of his experience. He patted
the car on the hood and said, lovingly, "I wouldn’t
take a million dollars for her.” After the storm
Mr. Smith’s car cranked in its usual trusty manner.
City Commissioner H. Leon Gaines had one of
the most terrifying experiences of the storm. He
had gone out into his yard to crank his car, in-
tending to take his daughter, Miss Kathleen, to
the city school where she was teaching. Seeing the
storm coming, he ran back into his home at the
corner of East Broad and South Green streets, and
finding his wife and daughter in the hallway, put
an arm around each. A moment later they were
wrenched from his grasp, the top story of his home
collapsed, and he found himself in a narrow aper-
ture formed by the falling upper floor and a side
wall of the lower floor. It was necessary for him
to take off his raincoat and his coat before he could
crawl the length of two rooms and get out. He
had called his loved ones, but received no response.
It was soon learned that both the wife, Mrs. Ger-
trude Gilbert Gaines, and the daughter were dead.
Their faithful cook, Nicie Collier, who had been
in their employ for thirty-four years, and who had
been standing beside them, was also killed, as were
the blind dog, "Pat,” and the Persian cat, "Boots.”
Their parrot, unharmed, kept up a continual
squawking in his cage until taken out. Mr. Gaines’
home, then on Summit street, was directly in the
path of the storm of 1903. It was almost de-
molished. When he arrived there then, he found
his wife and daughter, Kathleen, who was then
five days old, lying in their bed in a pool of water
with the rain pouring in. He tenderly carried
them into the kitchen, the only dry spot, where
they remained for a week, none the worse for their
terrifying experience. The cook, Nicie, was
slightly injured, but remained on duty through-
out.
W. E. Matthews, Linotype operator, of The
Gainesville News, escaped injury, even though fly-
ing pieces of timber and brick passed within inches
of his face. Mrs. Matthews, who is a bookkeeper
at The First National Bank, had an almost similar
experience. When the storm had passed, the first
thought of each was naturally of the other. Mr
? Page 39
Above, scene in eastern section of city showing residential area laid waste.
Below, close-up air view taken at junction of East Broad and East Spring.
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
? Page 40
Matthews rushed out of The News office toward
the bank, which is about a block away. Mrs.
Matthews rushed toward The News office. They
passed each other at a point about mid-way be-
tween the newspaper office and the bank, without
recognition. Both reached their destinations, and
then started back to their respective places of
employment. They met about the same spot where
they had previously passed each other only a
short time before.
Misses Frances Adams and Dorothy Davenport
were in a car near the Post Office when the storm
picked up their car, hurled it almost half a block
against the Col. C. C. Sanders monument, picked
it up again and flung it against the steps of the
First Baptist Church across the street. The wind
then snatched the head from the monument, de-
posited it in the middle of the street, then de-
molished the pillars and base. The young ladies
escaped unhurt.
C. F. "Stubby” Fiammett, salesman for Liggett
& Myers Tobacco Company, was attempting to get
to town in his car to escape the storm. Ffe had
reached a point directly opposite the Cooper Com-
pany, pants factory, when the building crashed on
his car, pinning him tightly. Fie was helpless to
move arms or legs, and water continually dripped
A Page 41
¦A
into his nose, eyes and mouth. Fie lay in this
position for almost three hours, listening to the
screams of the dying and the wounded in the
pants factory. Finally they quieted down to an ex-
tent where he could hear voices nearby. Con-
tinuing to blow the water from his nose and
mouth, he then cried for help. Fiis plea was heard
and shortly he was removed from the wreckage.
Fie was badly hurt—going to the home of his
mother at West Point, then being removed to an
Atlanta hospital. Fie visited Gainesville for the
first time on May 3rd, nearly a month after his
horrible experience.
Joe R. Brice, my brother, who operates a
cabinet shop here, escaped death twice within
three minutes. Fie left his shop to go to his home
on West Broad street. Fie had driven but three
blocks and was waiting in the street next to the
Cooper Company for another car, which he was
meeting, to pass so he could continue onward.
The building crashed, burying the other car and
almost demolishing his. Fiowever, he was not
injured, crawled out, and went home. Fiis shop
was completely demolished and a man to whom
he had been talking only three minutes before
was crushed to death. The car which he met was
driven by his own first cousin, John Murphy, who
was instantly killed.

Top, storm baby of Mrs. Ellis Chambers in improvised hospital. Below, three of
the many little ones who were victims, bearing their injuries bravely.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal

Harold Pierce, of Pierce Company, plumbing
and heating contractors, upon seeing the intensity
of the storm, ran down the Gainesville-Midland
railway, having an idea, he said, that if he could
get to Davis-Washington Company he would be
safe. He had reached a point near the Parks Feed
Store when the storm struck. He was picked up,
carried over two hundred yards around the Parks
building, flung against the paving on West Broad
street and skidded all the way across the street, his
head striking the curbing on the opposite side.
When he came to himself he was within two
blocks of his own home on West Avenue, and
several hundred yards from the place where he had
brought up against the curb.
Five days after the tornado struck Gainesville
the body of John Franklin, sixty-five, was dis-
covered in a bed of blooming tulips in the Jack-
son Greenhouse, on West Washington street. He
had been blown from his home below the green-
house, across an alley and his body had smashed
through the glass shelter into the beautiful bed
of hot-house flowers, being discovered by a clean-
up detail in charge of Roy Wright.
Five of the six employees of this greenhouse,
which was completely demolished, were probably
saved because a hail storm striking just before
the full force of the wind ripped through the frail
structure, caused them to huddle in the shelter of
a heavy fence. The other employee, Mrs. A. War-
ren Elrod, who was left in the office alone, grasped
the handle of the door and attempted to get out,
but just then the building crashed, the door was
wrenched from her grasp, something struck her
on the head, she was knocked to the concrete floor
and crawled beneath a strong table. The big smoke-
stack of the greenhouse crashed into the build-
ing, filling it with black smoke and soot.
Mrs. Elrod, when the intense roar had sub-
sided, realizing she was not badly hurt, began
throwing off the timbers, tin and parts of the roof
which held her down and backed out "like a craw-
fish,” she said. Arising from the floor she looked
about and there was not a person in sight. She
had a feeling, she said, that she was the "only
person left alive in the world.” Walking over the
wreckage she went to her car, parked nearby, and
saw it was demolished. She continued on toward
the public square, two blocks away, trying to
reach her home and child. She met the Clerk of
the Superior Court, Robt. W. Smith, with whom
she had worked for over a year. She spoke to him
and when she spoke he recognized her voice. Of
course she did not realize how she looked. She
was covered with soot and dirt and the blood from
the wound on her head had flowed over her face.
She said her woolen swagger suit became so heavy
in the driving rain that she could hardly hold it on.
Seven lives were saved in one building due to
the almost superhuman efforts of a big negro, who
exerted a power which never could have been his
except for the stress of the circumstances. Roy
Newman, proprietor of the Crescent Ice Cream
Company, and six other companions who were
in his place of business at the time, rushed into
the freezing room of the concern as the storm
broke. Almost immediately the building collapsed,
a five-ton steel beam fell across the room and debris
was piled against the front door—it could not be
opened from the inside. The back door of the box
was fastened on the outside. Almost immediately
the ammonia pipes burst in the room and its occu-
pants were soon being slowly stifled to death.
Albert Dyer, one of two negro employees in the
box, grasped the pipe inside the box, braced
his feet against the rear door and tore the heavy
six-inch door from its hinges. "Boss, my feets and
knees is sore dis mawnin’,” he said Tuesday, "but
dat’s all right—dat other nigger prayin’ hope me
out, I think.”
Mrs. Boyd Shaw, employee of the Cooper Com-
pany, was working in a special group of fifteen
when the storm struck. Her companions imme-
diately rushed to the stairway leading to the floor
below. All fourteen were killed and cremated in
the fire which followed. Mrs. Shaw in her terror
and haste got her dress caught in her machine.
As she was frantically attempting to release her-
self the roof lifted, she was picked up and carried
across the street, and deposited with little vio-
lence against the building of H. A. Terrell & Son.
She was not badly hurt. Claud Smith, an employee
of the Gainesville Cotton Mills in 1903, at the
time a previous cyclone struck here, had a similar
experience when the roof was lifted and he was
picked up into the air and deposited gently on the
Southern Railway right-of-way almost a quarter
of a mile from the mill.
Lt. Col. Thos. L. Alexander, Commander of
the 122nd Infantry, National Guard, tells this one:
? Page 43
Searching ruins for dead and injured on South Main street.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
He and another member of his company were
walking along the street at the rear of the Dixie-
Hunt hotel Tuesday night, thirty-six hours after
the storm. They saw a light among the wreckage.
Fearing it was a fire, they began clearing away
the timbers and bricks and soon saw it was an
automobile. Approaching it they heard what they
thought was a baby crying. Renewing their efforts
they soon reached the car and found the light to be
that of an automobile radio on the instrument
board. The radio had been going for thirty-six
hours and the battery was weak. What they had
thought to be a baby crying was a woman at
some distant station broadcasting a solo.
A remarkable experience is related by Paul
Smith, who is my nephew, and who operates a dry
cleaning establishment here. He was preparing to
leave home when his small daughters, Patsy and
Jean, called his attention to the clouds. He soon
realized their import, and taking the little ones
kneeled beside a bed in prayer while the storm
raged and passed. Then he arose, told them it was
over, and looked about. Every part of the home
except the room they had been was gone—swept
clean to the floors. There were double windows
in the room which was left. Of the sixteen panes,
only one was blown out, directly over a machine.
Upon this machine lay a Bible. The wind had
blown it open. Paul stepped to it and noticed it
was open at the 27th chapter of Acts, which was
headed, "Paul sent to Rome, is shipwrecked.” The
top verse on the page, the 14th, read: "But not
long after there arose against it a tempestuous
wind, called Eu-roc-ly-don.” Reading on to the
22nd, he found the assurance which had been
given him even as he knelt, "And now I exhort
you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss
of any man’s life among you.”
Mrs. C. J. Westbrooks and four neighbors were
standing in a room of the Westbrooks home on
West Avenue when the storm struck. The floor
upon which they were standing seemed to split
as if riven by a huge blade, and they dropped into
the cellar underneath the home. The house was
completely swept away, only one piece of weather-
boarding about five feet long being found. Not
one of them was injured.
Directly across the street from the Westbrooks
home Mrs. J. C. Nash and her two children, J. C.,
Jr., and Mary Cathryn, were standing in a room
when the floor split, letting them fall to the
ground beneath, while the home was swept into a
ravine 3 50 yards beyond and splintered into bits.
She lost her left eye, but the children were unhurt.
? Page 44
Flames licking unchecked after buildings had collapsed.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
Boy Scouts on the job—As Always
I
an couts of the Northeast Georgia Council,
1^3 both for the stricken area and in other dis-
tricts, upheld nobly the traditions of Scouting,”
said Scout Executive Charles N. Wilson, several
days after the storm. "Past experience shows that
when disaster strikes, among the first organiza-
tions on the job are the Scout troops, and the
tornado which struck Gainesville was no excep-
tion to the rule.”
Thousands of hours of service were credited
to local troops, Mr. Wilson said, while organiza-
tions at Athens, Buford and other parts of the
Council Area participated in the relief work by
securing donations of food and clothing, helping
load trucks, and even coming into the city to
relieve hard-worked local Scouts. Each Scout unit
of Gainesville, as well as the troops at New Hol-
land and Chicopee, were engaged in relief work.
Some Scouts worked continuously from Monday
morning until Wednesday before giving up.
Troop 9, Chicopee, was one of the first units
on the job. This outfit has many older members,
and they assisted in removing injured from
wrecked buildings, fought fire, secured 200 homes
for refugees in their village, delivered telegrams,
and were in the forefront of all relief activities.
Troop 18, Buford, reached the city at 12:30 Mon-
? Page 45
day, bringing supplies and utensils for setting up
a coffee canteen. A few minutes after 1:00 o’clock
they were serving coffee to the relief workers.
With the assistance of a detail of Athens Scouts,
they stayed on the job until midnight.
Troops 15, 16, 17, 26 and 30, the Gainesville
troops, and 31, at New Holland, got busy a few
minutes after the storm struck. They worked at
feeding stations, delivered telegrams, acted as
orderlies, directed out-of-town ambulances and
fire companies, delivered drinking water, cleaned
out Red Cross headquarters and in every way
demonstrated their ability to perform worthwhile
services. Chief Scout Executive James E. West
sent Mr. Wilson a message of congratulations
upon the fine work done.
CHILDREN WASH WINDOWS
School children of the little community of
Mt. Zion, hearing of the plight in which Gaines-
ville found itself, cast about for a means of help-
ing. They struck upon the idea of washing dishes
and windows to earn pennies, and in this manner
accumulated $11.08, which they immediately sent
as their share.
Senator Richard B. Russell (left), J. Ernest Palmour, Jr., and Major Joseph A.
Cooke survey ruins. Below, piles of provisions in front of Federal building.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
? Page 46
Interesting Sidelights on Tornado
George Stephens, colored, who has operated a
pressing business and tailoring shop here
thirty-four years, is a high-type representative of
his race. I asked him if he had inquired among
members of his race as to their opinion of who
sent the storm, and why. He told me he had asked
several colored theologians this question: "What
could the people of Sodom and Gomorrah have
been doing that was more sinful than the American
people, that they had to be destroyed?” He had
asked this question years ago and stated he had
never received a satisfactory answer. He said
that in 1926 he put the same question to Rev. Luke
G. Johnson, then presiding elder of the Gainesville
District, and Mr. Johnson replied: "God does not
deal with humanity as man does. He gives a man
or a nation a period in which to follow Him and
keep His commandments. If he keeps those com-
mandments, his time will be perpetuated, and in
event he does not, at the end of the alloted time,
according to Biblical history, God will pour out
His wrath upon him.” Stephens has been chairman
and recording steward of the board of trustees of
his church for practically thirty years.
A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE
Following is the statement of Miss Anna Sex-
ton, the last woman to be taken out alive from the
Cooper Company, pants manufacturers, where
forty men and women lost their lives.
"I got down on the stairway—a woman was
blown against me and knocked me down—my
head was hanging within an iron rail frame. I
saw and grasped a small iron rail which was part of
the stairway, a scantling was burning fiercely near
my face. The skin later peeled off my face—the
soles of my shoes were burned off. I held on to
this iron rail with my left hand for almost an
hour, while parts of my body were buried in the
brick and timbers.
" 'It’s catching afire,’ I screamed, 'won’t
somebody come and help out?’ I thought I would
choke with the smoke and dust in my face. I
thought of the children in the fiery furnace and
I sang, 'How Firm a Foundation,’ praying for
help. I thought of the Scripture passage, 'Fear
not, I am your God.’ I heard women screaming,
crying, confessing, praying, pleading as the flames
reached up and licked them down and burned
them to death—then it was quiet, except for the
crackle of the flames.
"Callie Mae Little was lying next to me—she
was also pinned down by one foot—then I could
hear someone talking. I hollered and begged for
them to get me out. They came, lifted Callie Mae
off, tore the brick and timbers from around me
with their hands, then two men pulled me out by
my right hand. I don’t remember anything else
until I found myself in Terrell’s Wholesale place,
across the street.
"Callie Mae and I tried to walk home, but
our feet were in such bad shape we could make
little progress. We met John Sullins and he picked
me up and another man picked up Callie Mae and
they took us home.
"I was listed among the missing for several
days. They came and got me Tuesday and took
me to the hospital. My sister was so excited she
didn’t ask where they were taking me. Then later
the Metropolitan man came to pay my insurance
and she told him where I was.
"I had four broken ribs, my face and hair
were burned, my feet and legs were baked, the
skin peeled off my face, my feet and legs, my side
was badly bruised. Even four weeks after the
storm I am still very sore.”
NEGRO WOMAN GIVES HER ALL
Here is an example of the unselfishness mani-
fested by thousands of people when they heard of
the true scope of the Gainesville storm. In the
Atlanta headquarters of the American Red Cross,
there was found in the immense volume of mail
donations a small, soiled envelope. Opening it,
an official found therein two dimes wrapped in a
sheet of tablet paper. Written on the paper was
a note from an Atlanta negro woman, who said
this was all the money she had, but she hoped it
would do somebody good. She stated she had
two blankets which would be given to the Red
Cross if they would call.
* Page 47
Top, workers getting their "rations" from one of the emergency kitchens. Below,
a resident searching in the ruins of his home for some prized possession.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
* Page 48
Humorous Incidents Are Included
As in all storms, whether of like caliber to this
one or not, many humorous incidents were
related by survivors. Among these is that told by
residents of Athens street, Gainesville’s colored
section, about a little negro boy. A long time
after the storm two negroes saw a barrel, which
was leaning against a building, move. Going to
it one of them took hold of it and pulled it aside.
Beneath was crouched a negro boy about ten years
of age. Looking up, the whites of his eyes gleam-
ing, his face a frightened mask, he said, in a
trembling voice, "Is it done gone?”
Residents of this same section tell one on a
negro pastor. The entire roof and most of the
frame work of one of the colored churches were
carried away by the storm. Upon adjacent streets
practically every negro house was completely swept
away. The pastor of the church, it is related,
moved among the remnants of his congregation
during the days which followed and told them,
"De Lawd has done blowed yo’ seats away. He
has left His’n for you to set in awhile. He aims
for you to use dese seats.” At the next service
every seat was occupied, it was said, while addi-
tional multitudes gathered on the outside.
A negro boot-black, by the name of Joe, when
asked whom he thought sent the storm, said, "Ah
think de Lawd sent it, and He didn’t use no blanks.
He got dem He aimed to git.” When someone told
Joe that the devil sent the storm, Joe said, "Wal,
Ah believes I’ll jest go over and jine de debil if he’s
got dat much powah!” However, he remained firm
in his belief that "de Lawd sent it.”
A family living in the western section of the
city had a coop of game chickens when the storm
struck. As is well known, these birds are heavily
feathered. Shortly after the storm had passed, two
of them were seen on a nearby hill and they had
been picked as clean as if for the frying pan.
A small red pig, which was identified later as
the property of Arthur W. Bell, City Commis-
sioner of Gainesville, was seen two hours after the
storm near New Holland, more than two miles
from the place where it had been in a stable on
Oak street, at the time of the storm. The animal
was running frantically toward Lula, 12 miles
distant.
Another pig whose "identity” was not estab-
lished, was seen roaming aimlessly through the
public square a few moments after the storm.
I, myself, saw an old sow and six pigs nosing
among the wreckage of my brother’s shop on
South Bradford street.
THE SHORTEST NEGRO PRAYER
The shortest negro prayer — of which there
were many—reported during the storm was that
of a resident of College avenue, where colored
homes were reduced to kindling. An old negro
saw the timbers flying through the air over the
public square as the storm swept in, and, clasping
his hands in front of him, said: "Lawd, come
quick! Ef’n yo’ kaint come quick—don’ come!”
THE ROOF WAS LEAKING
Dr. J. L. Meeks, prominent physician, left his
home immediately after the storm on his mission
of mercy to the injured. He was enabled to give
aid to many before reaching a home wherein a
family of his patients resided. Seeing the roof had
been blown away and most of the home wrecked,
he stepped upon the front veranda and looked in.
Huddled in a corner were four members of the
family, while in the center of the room was a
large wash-tub into which poured a stream of
water the size of his finger from the chandelier—
the deluge of rain was then at its height. He sur-
veyed the scene a moment, asked if anyone was
hurt, and upon being informed by a dazed member
of the quartet that all were safe, he remarked: "It
seems your roof is leaking.” That relieved the
tension, and they all smiled and came out. It was
a commentary on the mental effect of the storm.
? Page 49
preserving th<
emics Smith-
as a pai* of poor speci
i Dr Ales Hrdlicka, th-
anthropologist, ha
TUPELO DEATH COURTHOUSE, CITY MALL
TOLL IS OVER 54 m FIRE DEPARTMENT
WITH 10IN AREA WRECKED BY NEW STORM
13 gt
Leaving 500 Injured m Y Calu_Both Brenau and Riverside Escape
| Section of LUtle TV A Acworth Houses Destroyed.
! SHATTERED HOUSES I
YIELD NEW VICTIMS
Demolished Communities'
Lock Water „ „
When Fire Breaks Out; l ^
Some Feared Drowned "We
Front page of The Journal's first extra giving the details of the storm.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
The Atlanta Journal’s Superb Work
To every agency, to every city, to every news-
paper, and to all the thousands of those who
with generous heart and helping hand poured out
their gifts of material things and ministered in
tenderness and mercy to a city broken and bleed-
ing, Gainesville will forever be grateful. What
would have been our plight if it had not been for
these!
We cannot refrain, however, and we feel it
eminently proper, to pay tribute here in behalf
of "The Queen City of the Mountains” to The
Atlanta Journal and its broadcasting station, WSB.
From the first moment The Journal learned of
the tragedy which had befallen us, the entire facili-
ties of that great organization were thrown into
the effort to give us succor and solace. WSB, “The
Voice of the South,” became "The Voice of the
World,” for in the hours and days which followed
the first flash of the news, millions tuned in to hear
further details and also heard the pleas sent forth
for help.
It was the voice of WSB, cutting in on a musi-
cal program forty minutes after the storm, which
called for physicians, nurses, ambulances, fire-
fighting equipment — for help of any kind — to
come quickly to a broken and burning city. Within
only a few moments this help began to arrive, and
continued in an unending stream as the pleas be-
came more urgent, until some semblance of order,
some measure of comfort to survivors, was brought
out of the chaos.
During the first day and night of the storm,
WSB kept up an almost continuous broadcast of
details, pleas, acknowledgements, and for days
thereafter these acknowledgements continued.
Radio listeners everywhere sat with tears in their
eyes as they listened to the magnificent response,
and their hearts were moved to join their neigh-
bors in giving us aid.
I had ho electricity in my home from Monday
morning until about noon Thursday, and when I
came in about 2 o’clock for a bite to eat, cooked
over coals in the grate, I heard Ernest Rogers over
WSB giving names and amounts contributed by
cities and individuals, and of supplies sent. This
continued for the whole time I was at home, about
thirty minutes. It was the same that night—four
days after the storm. When my wife and I heard of
k Page 50
_ „ . c ijp- a tornado struck Gainovmc, |
GAINESVILLE Ga-. Apnl ® J£king , numbcr o( build,ngs In |
and part ot the residential area. A
iated Press, said lire followed the storm.
nt headquarters, the Courthouse and I
T* .“rno['Jcel‘s!Jidb'!ndanfcleph”neCdmessage I
Left to right, transmitters of Radio Station WSB near Tucker, Ga.; Lambdin Kay,
Ernest Rogers and The Atlanta Journal building.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
small towns which had set a quota, then subscribed
it three times over, besides sending truck loads of
provisions; when we heard of individual instances
of sacrifices, when we heard how generous was
the response to our great need, we could not keep
the lump from our throats, we did not attempt to
hide the tears which traced our cheeks. Lambdin
Kay and Walter Paschall also did much broad-
casting on the appeals and acknowledgements. The
longest broadcast on acknowledgements was over
one hour, by Ernest Rogers.
Then there was the dramatization of the storm
over WSB—so realistic, so vivid, so intensely dra-
matic that one could almost — but not quite —
visualize the tragedy which had taken such a toll.
It was written and presented by Edna Lee, fashion
editor of The Journal.
Many commercial programs scheduled #on WSB
were cancelled for days, this utter unselfishness in
the interest of a stricken neighbor being but one
evidence of The Journal’s esteem.
Column after column was devoted to giving
names and amounts contributed; publicity in every
conceivable form was given to benefit perform-
ances and to other instrumentalities through which
aid might be offered.
This is not the first evidence of The Journal’s
warm-hearted regard for Gainesville. Shortly after
the storm I went to the file rooms of that news-
paper and turned to the issue of June 1, 1903.
The entire front page was covered with details of
the storm which struck here that day.
The Journal was the first contributor then to
the fund which was donated to aid storm suffer-
ers, making out its check for $100 as soon as news
reached the paper’s offices. Five hours after the
storm The Journal also acknowledged an appro-
priation of $1,000 by the City Council of Atlanta,
and carried an additional list of contributions. For
days afterward, this paper carried lists of donors,
even down to 2 5 cents, stories by Royal Daniel,
and descriptive articles by that magnificent jour-
nalist, the late Daniel G. Bickers, who was then
its Gainesville correspondent. Pictures began to
appear on June 2, and two of these were repro-
duced in my article in The Journal’s magazine sec-
tion of May 10, 1936, thirty-three years later.
On the front page of The Journal of June 2,
1903, were printed excerpts from a speech de-
livered that day by the late Flerbert H. Dean, dis-
tinguished Gainesville attorney, who was then
president of the Gainesville Chamber of Com-
? Page 51
merce. Among other things he said:
"There is The Atlanta Journal — God bless
that paper for its noble staff of men and its great
work! It contributed the first $100 in money,
and has offered $1,000,000 in helpful suggestions.”
The Journal even went so far at that time as
to charter a special train on the Southern Railway
to bring help to Gainesville. It is little wonder
that the paper which "Covers Dixie Like the Dew”
holds so warm a corner in the heart of every
Gainesville citizen.
THANKS THE JOURNAL
April 12, 1936.
The Atlanta Journal,
Atlanta, Ga.
Gentlemen:
On the streets of Gainesville tonight the latest edition of
The Gainesville News is being delivered and we note that the
issue was printed by you.
We congratulate you on this wonderful spirit of co-
operation with The News and we know the benefits will be
n^any.
^This newspaper is an excellent example of newsgathering
and' publishing and many Gainesvillians will be delighted to
obtain copies for mailing to relatives and friends all over the
world.
During this period of time while Gainesville is rebuilding
our beautiful city, such neighborly cooperation from The
Atlanta Journal will help to bind closer together your
people and our people.
Thank you very much for this Gainesville News.
Yours very truly,
HOSCH BROS. CO.
HOW THE STORY WAS HANDLED
d Bradley, of the reportorial staff of The
Atlanta Journal, who received the first news
from the author of Gainesville’s great disaster,
tells* in the following statement of the magnitude
of the item which came over the wires on that
morning:
So sudden and so overwhelming was the catas-
trophe that overtook Gainesville on the morning
of April 6 that the outside world could hardly
comprehend the magnitude of the disaster as first
reports trickled out of the devastated area.
The Journal news staff was just settling down
to the day’s work that Monday morning and I
was starting to hammer out a more or less routine
news story on my battered typewriter. Suddenly
the telephone rang and I picked up the receiver
to hear a voice bringing an astounding message
of destruction and disaster.
"A tornado has struck Gainesville and has de-
stroyed the eptire business section,” the voice re-
ported. "Fires have broken out in the ruins of
three business blocks. It looks like more than a
thousand people have been killed or injured. Please
broadcast an appeal for help over WSB, The Jour-
nal’s radio station.”
The man at the other end of the line identified
himself as W. M. Brice, correspondent of The
Journal in Gainesville, who had hunted out the
only means of communication connecting the
stricken area with the outside world—a private
railroad telephone line. Everything else in the
way of telephone and telegraph facilities had been
destroyed by the terrific storm.
For an instant the full import of Mack Brice’s
message failed to register in my mind—it sounded
too improbable, too fantastic, too horrible.
A brief interchange of questions and answers
brought out the full significance of the message
and showed the magnitude of the disaster as it
was' evident, even at that moment, a little more
than half an hour after the tornado had struck
and the people of Gainesville were still stunned
and demoralized by the catastrophe.
Turning over to another member of the news
staff the first general outline of the situation as
described by Mr. Brice, so that the first story of
the disaster could be written for an extra edition
of The Journal that was on the streets within a
few minutes, I joined the group of news men and
photographers who made a record automobile run
from Atlanta to Gainesville over slippery roads
in a deluge of rain.
We found that Mack Brice had not exagger-
ated the situation; he had merely given us a hint
over the telephone, in the short time he had had
to grasp the situation, of the terrific destruction
wrought by the elements upon the "Queen City
of the Mountains.”
HOW A.P. HANDLED THE STORY
Ben Meyer, state news editor of the Associated
Press, gives the following statement of how the
Associated Press handled the story of Gainesville’s
disaster:
Atlanta, May 11.— (A.P.)—When a tornado
devastated Gainesville’s business district April 6,
the Associated Press got news of the disaster over
the only telephone line available at that time. The
story of the tragedy was flashed by W. M. Brice,
Gainesville correspondent of the Associated Press
and The Atlanta Journal. Brice telephoned the
news to The Atlanta Journal, at the same time
? Page 52
William Carl Hunt, assistant manager American Red Cross, directing Operators
W. F. Kennedy and H. J. Pierce at Station HCDH (short wave) at First M. E. Church
¦—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Constitution
How the Big Story Was Handled
appealing for help for his city. His report was
promptly relayed to the Associated Press.
Brice had started to Buford to reach a tele-
phone when he reasoned that a private railroad line
to Atlanta might be open, as the storm had not
apparently struck that section. He used it to
break the news of the disaster.
The Associated Press promptly dispatched staff
writers and cameramen to Gainesville. Mean-
while, additional information was obtained from
Buford through G. C. Reed, manager of the
Gainesville office of the Southern Bell Telephone
Co., who had gone there to put out calls for help.
Over its network of wires, the Associated Press
sent detailed stories describing the storm’s havoc,
to member newspapers throughout the nation.
HOW I.N.S. HANDLED THE STORY
William J. Good, Southeastern Division Man-
ager, International News Service, Atlanta, supplies
the following story of how I.N.S. handled the big
news:
Crippled communication facilities always make
coverage of a major story extremely difficult.
? Page 53
But it was disrupted communication lines that
gave me the first hint that something was wrong
at Gainesville, Ga., on the morning of April 6,
1936.
While attempting to telephone another city
that had been swept by a tornado earlier in the
day, I learned that all telephone lines in the vicin-
ity of Gainesville had gone out of commission.
Hurriedly dispatching a bulletin to that effect,
I began calling other towns in the vicinity of
Gainesville in an effort to learn what was wrong.
Establishing telephone communication with
Buford, I learned that a messenger had just arrived
there from Gainesville with the news that a tor-
nado had swept the "Queen City of the Moun-
tains,” leaving vast property damage and a death
toll expected to reach several hundred.
While reporters were rushing to the scene, we
kept the telephone wires to Buford busy as we
pieced the story together bit by bit.
Then over an uncertain private telephone wire
direct from Gainesville came word from a filling
station operator that he personally had seen eight
bodies. It was the first actual count of known
dead we had been able to obtain. But only a few
Public square piled full of wreckage in three minutes' time.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Constitution
minutes later, the count was increased to 27.
Telegraph communications between Atlanta
and Gainesville were re-established, and over those
wires began a steady stream of copy from the re-
porters representing us, telling a gripping story of
heroic rescue efforts in the face of death and de-
struction.
NEW BUILDING CODE ADOPTED
A new building code for the City of Gaines-
ville was adopted at a call meeting of the city
commissioners on April 22. Reading on the code,
which' was a lengthy document, was begun at a
meeting on April 20. Among other things the
code provided for greater durability and increased
strength in construction of buildings, especially
in the business district, the primary objects being
prevention of such loss of life in event of another
tornado, and more protection from fires by pre-
venting spreading of flames from one building
to another.
STRANGE STORIES ABOUT PICTURES
A picture belonging to the family of the late
Dr. Madison Roper, prominent Hall county man,
was kept on the mantel of a relative’s home on East
Spring street. The home was demolished. Several
days later two children found the photo in what
is known as Hunt’s pasture, almost three miles
from where it had been kept — and in exactly
the opposite direction from which the storm wind
had been blowing.
The Mountain View Hotel on West Washing-
ton street, operated by W. T. Shaw, was wrecked.
Every photo was blown from the main office room
at the left of the entrance. Mr. Shaw found on
going into the room after the storm, however, that
a new picture had been blown in. It was 8x12
inches, a fine group picture in front of a church
or schoolhouse. Up to eight weeks after the storm
he had not been able to find where it came from.
DRESS STANDS UNSCATHED
Every plate glass window was blown out of
Darnell’s Dress Shop, on the public square. In the
right-hand window three dresses were on display,
a knit one on each side of a printed model. They
were about three feet apart. The stands holding the
knit dresses on either side were demolished, the
dresses reduced to tatters. The print dress, which
had been put in the window Saturday night, re-
mained upon its stand without a blemish, although
every pocketbook and other accessory therein had
been swept clean. Mr. Darnell later sold the dress.
? Page 5 4
To the average American citizen the sight of
the soldier in uniform brings thoughts of
parades, of summer training camps or memories
of the World War. But to the present residents
of Gainesville, Georgia, the sight of olive drab
uniforms will probably always be associated with
those first desperate days following the sudden
destruction wrought by the tornado of April 6,
193 6.
The outstanding work of the Georgia National
Guard units under the able leadership of Colonel
Alexander has been covered elsewhere in this book.
While disaster relief is normally handled by the
State authorities and by the American Red Cross,
the Federal Government stands ready to supple-
ment their efforts whenever necessary to save life
or relieve suffering. Just after the tornado struck,
appeals for help began to reach Corps Area Head-
quarters in Atlanta. We turned to the manpower
source nearest the scene. The Civilian Conserva-
tion Corps companies in that section of Georgia
were immediately withdrawn from their work
projects, assembled and moved by truck with re-
quired equipment to Gainesville. Though the
Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee receives no
military training, the conditions under which he
lives and works develop that self discipline and
sense of order and responsibility in the individual
essential to meet successfully emergency situa-
tions. In addition, the veterans of the Dahlonega
camp had a background of military service from
the World War.
Within a few hours after the blow had struck,
six companies, some 800 men, were in Gainesville.
These included the companies from Buford, Blairs-
ville, Blue Ridge, Robertson, Suches, and the com-
pany of veterans from Dahlonega. What a scene
met their eyes as they arrived! The center of the
city in ruins, with dead and wounded imprisoned
in the wreckage; streets blocked by debris of fallen
buildings, and, to increase the difficulty of rescue
work, raging fires. Torrential rainfall, though
helpful to the fire fighters, brought added diffi-
culties to other phases of the rescue work.
The companies arrived from different direc-
tions, and it was necessary for them to clear away
the streets ahead of them in order to reach the
center of the city and to make contact with one
another. As the work progressed, one of the
companies was formed into an ambulance unit.
With the approach of night it was necessary to
post a large guard, and certain of the Civilian
Leaders who conferred with President Roosevelt at Gainesville. Left to right.
William Carl Hunt, Red Cross Relief Director; General Van Home Moseley,
Commander Fourth Corps Area; Miss Gay B. Shepperson, State WPA Director;
Major Joseph Cooke and Colonel T. L. Alexander, of the 122nd Infantry.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
The Army at Gainesville
Conservation Corps companies were designated to
cooperate with the National Guard on this im-
portant duty. Whatever the emergency of the
moment, they met it promptly and effectively.
Throughout the period of their activities in
Gainesville, these Civilian Conservation Corps lads,
under the leadership of Major Joseph R. Cooke,
worked in close cooperation with the National
Guard and with the relief agencies and operating
committees. For the enrollees, their officers, and
Major Joseph R. Cooke
the representatives of the Forest Service, the Soil
Conservation Service and the Park Service, who
worked so loyally with them, I have only the high-
est praise. From all sides have come words of
commendation for the prompt and business-like
manner in which they tackled their unaccustomed
and difficult task. Their splendid record during
this period of disaster will always live in the mem-
ories of the grateful survivors.
GEO. VAN HORN MOSELEY,
Major General, U. S. Army,
Commanding 4th Corps Area.
CITY OF GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA
Office of the Mayor
May 6, 1936
Mr. W. M. Brice,
City
Dear Sir:
A month after the storm which all but ripped the heart
out of our city, we have made wonderful strides toward
recovery from a blow which at the time was so staggering
as to be almost unbelievable.
With over 160 killed, hundreds more injured, the entire
business district laid waste, and hundreds of homes com-
pletely demolished, it will take a long time for us to be back
to normal, but we are planning, working, striving for a
better, more prosperous, more beautiful city. We are receiv-
ing wholehearted cooperation and encouragement from every
source, for which we are profoundly grateful.
Words are utterly inadequate to express our apprecia-
tion to the people everywhere who reached out helping
hands, lifted up our broken spirits, ministered to us and
brought us material gifts. Gainesville is grateful, and Gaines-
ville will not forget.
W. A. PALMOUR, Mayor.
R. Banks, President Jackson N. Rogers, Secy.
GAINESVILLE CLEARING HOUSE
ASSOCIATION
Gainesville, Georgia
May 6, 193 6
Mr. W. M. Brice,
City
Dear Sir:
I am pleased to grant your request for a statement re-
garding the part played by Gainesville’s banks in the big job
of restoring conditions to as near normal as possible after
the destructive storm of April 6.
All the three member banks of this association, The
Gainesville National, The Citizens and the First National,
were badly damaged. Fronts were blown in, roofs swept off,
and all interiors almost wrecked, including our machines,
typewriters, etc. The banks went to work and cleared up as
best they could, working part time by lamplight, and on
Friday, April 10, five days later, all three opened for business.
Today, a month later, deposits have increased from
$1,880,000 to $2,576,500, in round numbers, while clear-
ings are up 5 0 to 60%, a sure indication of the amazing
progress being made toward rehabilitation and reconstruction.
While emergency legislation has enabled individuals and
firms to finance much of this through the RFC, the banks
stand ready to help and have helped in the program under
way.
Very truly yours,
RAFE BANKS,
President First National Bank.
* Page 57
Page 5
Top, Pacolet Manufacturing Co. mill and lake as seen from the air Monday,
April 6. Below, close-up air view of business blocks from Maple to N. Green Sts.
Work Done by WPA Is Outlined
By Miss Gay B. Shepperson, Administrator,
Works Progress Administration of Georgia
IN all my experience in disaster relief work, I
have never seen a more complete picture of
concentrated destruction in a single community
than I witnessed in Gainesville upon my arrival
there early in the afternoon of April 6.
Only those who lived through the catastrophe,
or were in the storm area immediately afterward,
can appreciate the horrors, the suffering, and the
damage — and the fortitude and courage of the
people of that little city.
Mr. Harry Hopkins, WPA Administrator, and
other Washington officials, were concerned over
the welfare of the people in the storm zones of
Georgia and other southern states and authorized
the use of our resources and personnel in meeting
the emergencies in this state.
We were still in the midst of tornado relief
work in Cordele, Leesburg, and Washington, Geor-
gia, sections, when the news of the Gainesville
disaster reached Atlanta. We had been able to
help these other communities and felt that the
services of our organization would be needed in the
more serious situation at Gainesville.
A hurried check-up was made of personnel
available for temporary duty and inventories of
food, clothing, and first-aid supplies that could be
offered.
With several members of the State WPA staff
and the Director of District No. 4, in which the
disaster occurred, I reached Gainesville at one
o’clock in the afternoon. Our services were ac-
cepted by the City and American Red Cross and
our headquarters established in the Federal Building.
Personnel of our organization sent to Gaines-
ville included nurses, experienced in disaster re-
lief work; district WPA directors from Marietta
and Atlanta; the commodity distribution direc-
tor; engineers, safety officials; case aides; and
skilled workers. Early in the afternoon trucks
loaded with supplies and work crews from Atlanta
and other points streamed into Gainesville.
Relief activities were developed under three gen-
eral divisions:
1. Medical and Nursing Service
2. Commodity Distribution
Miss Gay B. Shepperson
3. Labor Operations (Clearing debris; searching
for dead and injured; and sanitary work).
Nursing- Service
The immediate plan of the nursing service in
addition to what the American Red Cross was
doing, was to expand local clinical facilities of the
textile mills and Riverside Military Academy. The
Methodist Church and the new jail, which had been
damaged, were used as mortuaries. From emer-
gency first-aid stations patients were evacuated
to the County Home and Alto Sanitarium. It
was soon evident that these facilities were insuffi-
cient to accommodate all patients and many were
removed to Atlanta hospitals.
In all emergency stations about 910 patients
were given first-aid treatment. Ninety-eight nurses,
including 26 WPA nurses, were used beyond emer-
gency first-aid service.
WPA nurses, after forty-eight hours of work
with the injured in the first-aid stations, were as-
? Page 5 9
signed to field duty and visited every remaining
house in Gainesville to attend injured in homes,
administer typhoid vaccines, and caution residents
about the water supply. These nurses, accustomed
to rural public health duty, adjusted themselves
easily and quickly to conditions met in homes after
the storm.
Commodity Distribution
Canteens were opened to supply food to disaster
victims, WPA and CCC workers, and members
of the National Guard. In addition to supplies
from Atlanta and other WPA commodity ware-
houses, donations were received from the American
Legion, and other organizations and individuals.
For two days commodities were distributed to
storm victims upon identificaton by representa-
tives of the Citizens Committee and the Red
Cross. Then balanced weekly food orders for
various-size families were put into effect; bedding
and clothing, to meet the immediate, individual
needs of families, were allotted and issued on orders
from the Red Cross.
Just as a matter of record, it may be stated
that commodities made available from our ware-
houses during the emergency period aggregated
about 85,000 pounds of food and 46,000 articles
of clothing, besides bedding, cots, household neces-
sities, and first-aid supplies.
Labor Operations
On the morning of the disaster approximately
5 50 workers were rushed to Gainesville and nearby
points. During the week approximately two thou-
sand men were supplied by the CCC, Resettlement
Administration, Soil Erosion Division, Forestry
Department, National Guard, and American
Legion. Civilian workers were organized in units
and assigned to searching for the dead and in-
jured, clearing wreckage in the public square, re-
moving debris from streets and buildings, covering
wells and pits, removing carcasses, and building
sanitary conveniences where needed. An emer-
gency headquarters building for the American
Red Cross was erected, and the roofs of public
school buildings repaired temporarily to house offi-
cials of the agencies directing emergency work.
After Saturday, April 11, all emergency work
units, except local WPA workers, were removed
from the stricken area. Following the President’s
visit the reconstruction program was formulated.
The local WPA workers remained in Gainesville
to carry on the reconstruction program.
The feeling of all our workers is expressed, I
believe, when I say that we are thankful to have
had an organization nearby to help in the emer-
gency, and we are gratified that we shall have a
part in rebuilding the devastated City of Gaines-
ville.
PURE WATER FURNISHED
One of the trucks supplying pure water
to Gainesville
—Photo Courtesy Leonard Cinciolo
WILDCAT SUCCUMBS TO STORM
The week after the storm the following ad-
vertisement appeared in a Gainesville newspaper:
"Reward of $10 will be paid for return of my
wildcat, unharmed. Was blown from rear of home
of Roy Parks, West Washington street. J. Marvin
Bell.” Two weeks after the ad appeared the ani-
mal’s remains were found—lying beside a log a
quarter of a mile from where he had been kept,
His cage was found nearby. Mr. Bell had owned
the cat six years.
Page 60
NEC Head Deems ExpendituresWise
Erle Cocke
There is no question but that the tornado of
April 6, 1936, at Gainesville, Georgia, was a
catastrophe of such nature as to have caused the
average community to have a feeling of helpless-
ness, with little desire to rebuild. However, the
indomitable will and extraordinary spirit of the
citizens of this community have made possible the
rebuilding of a city and community that will, in
a short time, offer greater opportunities and ad-
vantages than was the case before the catastrophe.
The aid and assistance offered by the several
Government agencies, we trust, have been, and
will continue to be, of value. However, such as-
sistance and such progress that may have been
made would not have been possible without the
wholehearted spirit of cooperation of the citizens
of the community.
There is no question that all Federal expendi-
tures at this point, whether in loans or grants or
for other services, will prove wise and necessary
expenditures on the part of the governmental
authorities. In our opinion it will be only a short
space of time before we see a greater and better
Gainesville.
ERLE COCKE,
State Director for Georgia,
National Emergency Council.
PARTICIPATING IN
RECONSTRUCTION
Personnel of the leading agencies participating
in the job of reconstruction in Gainesville is as
follows:
Director National Emergency Council — Erie
Cocke.
War Department Advisory Group. — Lieut.
Colonel Brehon B. Somervell, Captain Howard H.
Peckham; head engineer, Clarence E. Boesch;
senior engineer, Ralph E. Dippel; engineer, Her-
bert Knapp; draftsmen, W. L. Keel and H. E.
Wycoff.
Works Progress Administration—Administra-
tor, Miss Gay B. Shepperson; deputy administra-
tor, R. L. MacDougall; district director, R. E.
Williams; district consulting engineer, Lamar
Partain; resident engineer, David S. Cuttino, Jr.;
general supervisor, Samuel C. Dunlap.
Housing Division Public Works Administra-
tion-District manager, D. A. Calhoun; PWA
Director, J. Houston Johnston; RFC manager,
Erie Cocke; Counsel, E. B. Dunlap; assistant chief
engineer, W. C. Ribenack; examiners, W. J. Davis,
Howard Scott, S. R. Sharpston, W. F. Cummings,
George Kirby.
TORNADO CHANCE 625,000 TO 1
"Don’t worry about tornadoes,” says Dean
F. H. H. Calhoun, of the Clemson College School
of Chemistry and Geology, Clemson, S. C. "The
chances are about one in 62 5,000 that one may
strike where you are.” Other facts about torna-
does, he says, are that an average of only fifty
occur each year; the area of damage is seldom
greater than a square mile, and only twenty of the
fifty do much damage.
'k Page 61
Lieut. Col. Somervell Tells of Work
Lieutenant Colonel Brehon B. Somervell,
district engineer of the U. S. War Depart-
ment, who was in charge of the engineers and
architects aiding in Gainesville’s rehabilitation,
gives an interesting account of the work done by
the War Department group. He says in his let-
ter of May 12: "I have received your letter of
May 8, and am interested to learn that you are
writing a history of the recent tornado. In ac-
cordance jvith your request I am forwarding here-
with a brief account of the work done by the
War Department group, which I hope will be sat-
isfactory for your purpose.” Following is the
account:
In accord with the pledges of assistance by
the President in Gainesville on April 9, 1936, and
at the request of Senator George, Senator Russell
and the Congressional delegation, transmitted
through the National Emergency Council, the
Secretary of War directed the Chief of Engineers
to furnish an officer and the necessary assistance
to act as technical advisors in the formulation of
a program for the early reconstruction of that
part of Gainesville damaged by the tornado of
April 6, 1936.
The group thus formed arrived in Gainesville
on April 15 and immediately undertook a survey
of the storm damage to determine the elements
of a suitable reconstruction plan.
It was at once apparent that all repairs and all
new construction should follow modern safe prac-
tice to avoid future hazards. Accordingly a build-
ing code was prepared and submitted to the City
Commissioners for approval, and a temporary
building construction department was organized
with personnel furnished by the Works Progress
Administration to enforce the code and to make
the necessary inspections in connection with per-
mit applications and construction. The War De-
partment group established and carried the routine
of this department until the WPA personnel were
selected and approved to take over the work.
Also all standing ruins were inspected and rec-
ommendations to tear down those which were
dangerous were transmitted to the WPA authori-
ties.
There was an obvious opportunity to plan the
arrangement and architectural treatment of all
new construction to provide a Civic Center and
to improve the former arrangements for traffic
circulation, recreation and other facilities, as
funds became available. A plan embodying these
features was prepared and recommended to local
interests for adoption.
Consideration was given to the acute short-
age of housing facilities and the suggestion was
made that the assistance of the Housing Division
of the PWA be sought.
The War Department personnel received the
full co-operation of the County and City govern-
ments, the City Planning Commission and the
various agencies of the Federal Government in-
volved in the program. As a result of their valu-
able assistance and their enthusiastic reception of
the plans presented, the reconstruction will be
carried out along lines which will make the city
of Gainesville a better place in which to live.
POWER OF THE WIND
Another striking evidence of the power of
the wind that whipped through Gainesville was
in the twisting of huge steel girders just erected
in the new high school gymnasium. The girders
were twenty-eight feet long, fourteen inches high,
weighed 1,400 pounds each. They were bent as
one would bend a twig. Two pieces of timber
sixteen feet long, eight inches wide and two inches
thick were driven eight feet into the ground at
the rear of the building.
RARE KINSHIP FREAK
One of the rarest freaks was when Mrs. J. W.
Rankin picked up a check at her home in Seneca,
S. C., the day after the storm, and found that it
had come from the Motor Home, operated by her
own brother, E. F. (Neighbor) Hughs, on West
Spring street. It had been written fourteen years
before, May 4, 1922, and signed by her brother.
Seneca is eighty miles from Gainesville.
? Page 62
President of Brenau College INVakes Statement
Although Brenau College, internationally fa-
mous college for women, was in the path
of the storm, not a single student was hurt, and
this fact soon became known to the thousands
interested, through quick communication with the
outside world. Thus anxiety was relieved among
the parents and relatives of students. Dr. H. J.
Pearce, president of the institution, has contrib-
uted the informative article which follows to this
work:
Gainesville, Ga., May 20, 1936.
The fine spirit of the student body of Brenau
was manifested in the behavior of the 450 stu-
dents during and immediately following the storm.
Although the roofs of four of the main buildings
were practically destroyed, there were no injuries
to faculty or students; and the storm was over so
quickly that there was comparatively little excite-
ment and no hysterics.
One of the greatest losses to the college was
the fine grove of trees on the campus. More than
half of these trees were uprooted, but the famous
"Crow’s Nest,” erroneously reported as destroyed,
miraculously remains uninjured. Landscape archi-
tects are now at work making a new plan for the
campus. While the trees cannot be restored it is
believed that the campus can be made even more
beautiful than before.
The damage to the buildings and equipment of
Brenau College has been estimated by competent
appraisers at $65,000; the damage to the Dixie
Hunt Hotel, owned by the college, at approxi-
mately the same amount. Under the recent act
of Congress loans by the RFC have been made
available to private colleges in the tornado district
and application has been made for an amount to
cover the immediate needs of the college.
The Board of Trustees of the college had re-
cently authorized a campaign to increase the en-
dowment fund, and this campaign is now in pro-
cess of organization. It will be enlarged to in-
clude the amount necessary to restore the college
buildings and the hotel, the loan from RFC meet-
ing the temporary emergency. Already even be-
fore the appeal has been made, numerous former
students and friends of the college have sent in
Dr. H. J. Pearce, Sr.
cash donations for the reconstruction fund.
Brenau College is the only college for women
in Georgia, and one of the very few in the South,
which is entirely independent both of state and
denominational affiliation. The college is owned
and controlled by a self-perpetuating Board of
Trustees who have no interests to serve except the
education of young women.
This fact, ordinarily considered an advantage
by its patrons and friends, has proved to be some-
what of a handicap in the emergency occasioned
by the recent tornado. If Brenau were a state
institution the national government would repair
the damage without expense to the Board of Trus-
tees. If it were denominational, collections could
be taken in the churches.
As it is neither state nor denominational the
appeal for help must be made to alumnae and
friends and to those friends of education who be-
lieve that education is best served when independ-
ent of political and sectarian control.
H. J. PEARCE, President.
A Page 6)
Top, looking south toward West Broad street. Center, ruins of Newman's and
Frierson-McEver. Bottom, ruins of Joe R. Brice shop in foreground.
—Photo Courtesy Gainesville Photographic Studio
? Page 64
Statement from President Beaver of Riverside
Colonel Beaver very generously complied
with my request for a statement about the
thrilling part his school and students had in help-
ing during the first stressful, harrowing days after
the tornado had struck. His letter follows:
As has been our custom for several years, we
spent the winter in Hollywood, Florida, and our
special train with five hundred cadets and forty
faculty officers arrived in Gainesville about 10
o’clock Saturday night, April 4. We used Sun-
day, April 5, in unpacking and getting organized,
and intended to start regular school work on
Monday, April 6.
About 8:20 that morning I was standing in
my bathroom shaving when I heard what seemed
to be an airplane. This sound increased until I
decided it was a fleet of planes, but I could not
understand why they would be flying over Gaines-
ville so early in the morning. I accordingly
stepped to my bathroom window, and the sight
I saw was one that will never be forgotten. Com-
ing toward Gainesville from the southwest, but
rather high in the air, was this tornado, in the
vortex of which could be seen large timbers, parts
of trees and other debris.
Mrs. Beaver was in an adjoining room, and
I called to her to look at the tornado, which
seemed to be headed toward our house but which
suddenly swerved to the south and east, and the
noise died down. I had no idea that the tornado
had struck in or near Gainesville but remarked to
Mrs. Beaver that we would probably hear from
that tornado later in the day.
It was not until some thirty minutes later,
while I was eating breakfast, that one of my
associates came in to tell me that the tornado had
struck Gainesville. I went to town immediately,
where I was met by Mayor W. A. Palmour of
the city of Gainesville and Chairman Lester Hosch
of the local Red Cross, who jointly requested me
to take charge of the situation. I then went to
Riverside and moved into Gainesville some four
hundred of our older cadets and about forty fac-
ulty officers, who for eight continuous hours did
as fine a piece of work as could be imagined.
Our hospital at Riverside was immediately con-
verted into a first-aid station, where our own
trained nurse, assisted by the wives of faculty
officers and other employees, worked heroically and
industriously for the greater part of the day in
relieving as far as possible the suffering of the
injured people whom our officers and cadets in
Gainesville were extricating from the damaged
buildings, stores, etc. The younger cadets who
remained at Riverside were used in bringing mat-
tresses and blankets from their quarters to the
hospital and the fraternity houses.
This work continued until the many ambu-
lances arrived in the afternoon, followed shortly
afterward by several companies of the National
Guard under the command of Adjutant General
Lindley W. Camp, to whom we turned over the
job and moved our cadets back to Riverside.
SPLENDID JOB AT ATHENS
Athens, home of the University of Georgia,
where hundreds of young Gainesville citizens have
received diplomas, set a quota of $2,500 for relief
of storm sufferers. Radio Station WTFI broadcast
appeals, suspending all programs Monday, and con-
tinued these appeals many days. Athens people
oversubscribed the quota set within less than three
hours. Four days later they had subscribed more
than $6,000, besides sending thousands of dollars
worth of food, clothing and supplies of all kinds.
During the first day, fifteen trucks loaded with
food and supplies, including medical kits, were
dispatched to Gainesville, and this kept up for
days.
WTFI continued to ask for help through Fri-
day, and Athens continued to give even after that.
Practically every doctor and nurse of the "Classic
City” offered his or her services, and most of them
came at one time or another. A striking instance
of the response was recorded when WTFI asked for
twelve Athens ladies to volunteer for some special
services, stating the appeol would be repeated in
half an hour if necessary. In less than ten minutes
the announcer stated that more than the required
number had volunteered and were ready to go.
This is cited as just one of the hundreds of
outstanding evidences of neighborliness and will-
ingness to help.
? Page 65
White building in right center is Federal
-Air view of business and residential sections of Gainesville taken a few days before the storm.
Public square may be seen a block beyond. First Baptist church in right foreground.
BEFORE-
building.
AFTER—Air view of business district taken five hours after storm,
parts. 5, Tasty Toasty Cafe. 6, Gainesville Plumbing & Heating Co.
son-McEver Co. 11. Georgia Power Co. offices. 12, J. D. Matthews.
lg# Princeton Hotel. 17, Geo. P. Estes Co. 18, Darnell s. 19, Rose s
Shop. 23, Imperial Pharmacy. 24, W. R. Hughes Jewelry Store. 25
29, J. M. Parks & Sons. 30, The Hub. 31, Jake Sacks. 32, Robinson's
Co. 36 (six places). Riverside Cafe, Whatley's Pharmacy, Mangum
in State Bank Building, No. 1.
1, State Bank Building. 2, Dixie Hunt Hotel. 3, Motor Inn. 4, H. D. Brice, auto
7, Gainesville Broomworks. 8, Newton & Ward Co. 9, Newman's Inc. 10, Frier-
13, First National Bank. 14, J. C. Penney Co. 15, McLellan's 5 and 10c Store.
5, 10 & 25c Store. 20, Millner's. 21, Rhodes-Wood Furniture Co. 22, The Book
Citizens Bank. 26, Piedmont Drug Co. 27, Dr. J. C. Morrison. 28, Hulsey's.
. 33, Gainesville National Bank. 34, Pruitt-Barrett Hardware Co. 35, Gallant-Belk
& Brogdon Barber Shop, Coffee Pot Cafe, Whitfield's, Paul's Clothing Co., the latter
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
GAINESVILLE, "THE QUEEN CITY”
W. A. Palmour, Mayor and City Commis-
sioner; W. Arthur Bell and H. Leon Gaines, Com-
missioners.
Fred Roark, City Manager.
Edwin Dozier, Clerk to Commissioners.
R. Henry Smith, Chief Fire Department.
D. Jack Hopkins, Chief Police Department.
C. A. Castleberry, Sanitary Inspector.
C. L. B. Sanders, City Engineer.
R. G. McHugh, City Electrician.
C. J. Cheves, Superintendent Public Schools.
Nestling at the foot of the famed Blue Ridge
Mountains, surrounded by a section rich in agri-
cultural, mineral and other varied resources,
Gainesville is among the more economically sound
and progressive cities of the South.
During her one hundred and eighteen years of
existence she has grown steadily, consistently, and
has many advantages and accomplishments to
which she can point with pride, not the least of
which is the wonderful spirit of cooperation so
recently manifest among her citizens which en-
abled her to react with such amazing speed and co-
ordination to the paralyzing blow delivered by the
tornado-—which spirit has been so highly praised
by leaders from the President on down.
Gainesville is the home of Brenau College for
young ladies and Riverside Military Academy for
young men, two of the outstanding schools of the
nation. They draw students from every state and
many foreign countries. Her public school system
ranks among the best athletically, academically and
socially.
With six churches in the city limits—two of
which will be built anew—Gainesville is the relig-
ious center of this section, its convention city. An
unusually large number of citizens are church
members, church goers.
With the highest type of citizenry to be found
in any mill communities, Gainesville’s three large
textile mills and modern hosiery mill augment the
flow of cash into the arteries of trade, besides add-
ing greatly to the social, fraternal, religious and
civic life of the community.
The mill of the Chicopee Manufacturing Cor-
poration, producers of the famous Johnson & John-
son surgical supplies, established here in 1927, is
known as the "Model Mill Village of the World.”
Its beautiful stone-trimmed, spacious, air-condi-
tioned mill building, surrounded by well-kept
lawns, lies on one side of the paved highway to
Atlanta, while on the other side the modern brick
electrically-equipped homes of the employees are
aligned along paved streets and banked in shrub-
bery and flowers. The lighting system is under-
ground.
Older but almost equally modernized are the
plants of Pacolet Manufacturing Co. of South
Carolina at New Holland and the Gainesville Cot-
ton Mills, on the Southern Railway near the city
limits. They operate over 12 5,000 spindles in the
manufacture of textile goods and annually con-
sume thousands of bales of cotton produced in
the county. Pacolet is spending $1,2 50,000 in
remodeling after storm damage, and will soon re-
sume normal operations.
The plant of the Owen Osborne Co., Inc.,
located on East Spring street just outside the city
limits, is one of the most modern in the country,
and although wrecked in the storm, has been re-
built and additional machinery put in, which will
increase the output. The company makes the
famed Artplus hosiery.
A wide variety of other products are manu-
factured here.
There has been but one bank failure in Gaines-
ville’s history. Vacancies in the business district
are a rarity.
The Piedmont and Appalachian scenic paved
highways traverse the city north and south, while
the east-west highway, partially paved, from the
mountains to the sea, forms the crossroads which
will eventually make of Gainesville a metropolitan
city.
With an elevation of 1,3 00 feet, an average
summer temperature of 72 degrees, winter average
52, Gainesville’s climate has long been a source of
favorable comment. There are no deaths from heat
prostration, seldom a death from exposure to cold,
no floods, no crop failures, few of the disadvan-
tages found in varying degrees in less favored sec-
tions.
Gainesville’s more than 10,000 people form a
happy, prosperous, progressive whole, united in
spirit, facing the future with more faith, more
courage, more fortitude, more determination since
the ravages of the tornado has brought them closer
together in unity and in purpose toward a common
goal.
Looting and other offenses against the stricken
populace were at a minimum, with militiamen and
policemen standing twenty-four hour watches
throughout the devastated area.
A Page 68
Seeing the Devastation from the Air
Description by Lee Willey,
New York-New Orleans Pilot of Eastern Air Lines
CCrj-1 he scenes of destruction and human suf-
I fering caused by the tornado were so amaz-
ing and startling that Tompkins and myself circled
over the city and surrounding country for several
minutes before we remembered our mission and
started snapping pictures.” So spoke Lee Willey,
veteran pilot on the New York-New Orleans run
of Eastern Air Lines, as we sat in the Atlanta
offices of the company. "I happened to be in
Pilot Lee Willey
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
Atlanta that day with Tommie Tompkins. I had
heard earlier reports on the storm, but didn’t think
that it was moving in on Gainesville.
"When the word came through that the tor-
nado had struck, no one knowing how badly,
Tommie and I called the field to check the weather
just in case. It was well that we did, for not ten
minutes later a message came over the tape from
Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker ordering a ship to survey
the damaged area and to take news pictures.
"One look at the message started both of us
out the door, and into a car headed for Candler
Field. At the port we found the only available
ship, a single-motored Pitcairn Mailwing, char-
tered by an Atlanta newspaper. That ship is the
kind Eastern Air Lines used on night mail runs
some time before they put on the big Douglas
and Lockheed Electra planes we now fly.
"Well, we had only been at the field about ten
minutes, wondering what to do, when the phone
rang, bringing a call from the paper. They had
taken a shot at the weather and decided it was
bad for pictures. It was pretty soupy at that. The
dispatcher hung up the phone and then rang the
hangar to authorize clearance on the plane which
was already on the line warming up.
"We climbed into our chutes and with Tommie
at the controls, took off for Gainesville. Climbing
steeply, we were soon in the low overcast, and
flying blind. Tommie, by the way, is on the
Chicago run for Eastern Air Lines.
"We flew blind most of the way, and when
we did come out of the overcast, we sighted col-
umns of smoke rising a little to the right of the
nose of the ship. We swung over in that direction
and were soon over Gainesville—or what was left
of it—would be nearer the mark.”
"Was the place badly hit?”
"It was literally blown apart. I could hardly
believe my eyes. The destruction was terrible, and
was still going on. As we circled only a few
hundred feet over the center of the city, the walls
of buildings were crashing into the streets, and
there were fires springing up all over the city.”
"What were the people doing?”
"Did you ever kick an ant hill apart and watch
the ants scramble madly about, not knowing
which way to turn, or what to do? Well, that is
the way the people in the city looked to us—-
so stunned and shocked, that they just ran, with
no purpose. The suffering must have been ter-
rible.
"While Tommie circled low, I opened my lens
wide and snapped about fifty-six shots. I really
didn’t expect any results, because the mist was
thick, and the smoke from the fires was very bad.
We flew around for about an hour and a half and
then back to Atlanta. I got the surprise of my
life when every one of the shots turned out
rather good.”
Mr. Willey was kind enough to furnish the
? Page 69
Looking down on destruction, with fires belching from Palmour Hardware Store.
—Photo by Eastern Air Lines
author with the cover photograph and nine others.
The same photograph used on the cover was given
a spectacular double page spread by the New York
Daily Mirror.
Mr. Willey has an interesting life history,
which is briefly presented herewith. He was
born in Burlington, Colo., and after reaching ma-
turity engaged in the cattle business. He decided
to enter aviation and sold out. That was ten years
ago.
Learning to fly in a California private school,
he later taught acrobatics there for two years, then
became chief instructor of the Aero Corporation
of California at Los Angeles. This was sold to the
Western Air Express of the same city, and he
"went in the trade,” as he expressed it. He flew
between Salt Lake and Los Angeles, and between
Cheyenne and El Paso five years, then went with
Eastern Air Lines.
"But one incident which stands out in my
mind is the time Les (Swede) Carlson’s parachute
got fouled in the wing of my plane as he hopped
off,” he said. "That was at Venice, Calif. There
he was, hanging down, several thousand feet up
in the air. For a time I couldn’t figure what to do.
Finally I made for the beach. Arriving there, I
put the plane low over the water at the edge of
the sea and dragged him through it until he could
disengage himself from his chute. Then he waded
out, unhurt.”
ACCOMMODATING AS USUAL
C. R. (Cash) Hammond, past commander of
the Ninth district of the American Legion, lead-
ing jeweler, and long prominent in civic affairs of
Gainesville, is one of the most accommodating of
men. This was further demonstrated the day of
the storm, in an unusual manner. Cash was stand-
ing amid the wreckage of his store front when a
lady, a FERA official, entered the door. He cour-
teously asked if he could help her, and she said
she was looking for a can opener. He had just
found a perfectly good can opener of the dime
store variety among his diamonds and cut glasses,
and was glad to accommodate.
VISITOR FROM THE WEST
A. L. Schafer, of San Francisco, Calif., man-
ager of the Pacific area, Red Cross, visited Gaines-
ville June 3 for the purpose of observing the work
of the disaster staff and to confer with Red Cross
officials. He is one of the well known national
figures in Red Cross work, and was formerly di-
rector of the Eastern states area. He stated to
local Red Cross officials: "Everything I have
heard—and Gainesville has been the topic of con-
versation nationally since the tornado—has been
to the credit of this community. I find unbeliev-
able pluck and courage among your citizenry, with
a determination to rebuild and go forward seldom
seen.”
* Page 7 0
Congressman Whelchel Foresees Greater City
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C., May 12, 1936.
On the morning of April 6, this year, before
I had left for the office, my secretary called me
and gave me the information that "Gainesville
had been almost blown off the map” by a tornado.
She had obtained this information from the Asso-
ciated Press, as they, knowing Gainesville was my
home, very thoughtfully gave us the information
the minute they received it.
I immediately tried to contact someone in
Gainesville, but this I could not do on account
of telephone and telegraph lines being destroyed.
I then called for my brother Clarence, in Atlanta,
and was advised he had gone to Gainesville.
The report we first received was that at least
1,000 people had been killed and injured, and
property destroyed—the amount no one could es-
timate—it was so great. To say that I was terri-
fied and grieved does not express my feelings. My
first impulse was to leave immediately for Gaines-
ville; however, there had been passed in the House
a bill appropriating $2 5,000,000 to alleviate the
distress of those in the flood-stricken areas of the
nation; the bill was pending in the Senate and
through our able Senators from Georgia an amend-
ment was obtained, raising the amount of this
appropriation $2 5,000,000, this additional amount
to be used to rehabilitate or rebuild the stricken
area—business houses as well as homes.
I remained in Washington until the bill had
been passed by the Senate; then, in connection
with the Banking and Currency Committee, who
were most sympathetic to our cause, the amended
bill was sponsored through and passed by the
House, thus making this relief possible for our
storm-stricken area. My information is that far
over a million dollars has already been approved to
go into Gainesville, in accordance with the in-
tention and spirit of the Act, and also that many
more thousands of dollars will be expended to put
our town in a measure back where it was before
this awful catastrophe came upon us.
As soon as I was confident the measure making
this money available was safe in passing the Sen-
ate and House, I went to Gainesville, and it was
heart-breaking to look upon the grief, suffering,
and destruction caused by this terrible disaster—
truly, it was such to try men’s souls.
In the Methodist church I witnessed a scene
which made me realize that the true nobility in-
herent in mankind still lives. In the main audi-
torium the Red Cross was administering relief;
in the Sunday School room a hospital had been
established, where loving care was being given the
wounded and dying; in two of the other rooms
were the bodies of those who had not been identi-
fied, or were awaiting burial. My mind reverted
to these words: "I was an hungred and ye gave me
to eat; I was thirsty and ye gave me to drink;
I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and
ye clothed me.”
After remaining in Gainesville for a short
time, rendering all the aid I could to alleviate the
suffering of my people, I returned to my post of
duty. One month later I went back and was
amazed to see the progress that had been made in
tearing down those shells of buildings which had
the appearance of a tomb erected to the ghastly
happenings of only a few days past.
A fine spirit is being manifested by Our peo-
ple; they are trying by hard work and service to
others to forget their own losses in property and
in the lives of loved ones, and while they will al-
ways treasure the memory of those who all too
unsuspectingly and quickly were called upon to
pay the supreme sacrifice, I am constrained to be-
lieve our fair city will, within a short time, emerge
from chaos and ruin and the people will realize
that out of all this trouble and sorrow there is
the dawning of a new day, which has been made
possible by the help of the good people of the
nation and the unconquered, undying spirit which
has so long characterized Gainesville and its own.
Very sincerely,
B. FRANK WHELCHEL.
? Page 71
Top, former Howard Thompson homeplace. East Broad. Center, ruins of Grace
Episcopal church. Bottom, residence blown to bits.
—Photo Courtesy Gainesville Photographic Studio

? Page 72
Vital Statistics of Tornado's Toll
Careful compilation of records, checking and corded for major and minor surgical conditions
rechecking upon the part of the Red Cross, under- and for physical examinations. Complete records
takers, city officials and others required to keep the were available to show 208 people had been hos-
statistics, reveals the following information in pitalized. This number is plus all patients who
figures of the extent of the damage done: had been taken to Alto.
Identified Dead 1 There were 5 84 home visits made by Red Cross
Unidentified Dead . " I .'.!'." 6 fidd nurses durm§ Ma>'-
Missing ------------------------- 8 Stone J. Crane, assistant director, who re-
Number Injured ------------------ 950 mained on the job continually in the Gainesville
Total Business Structures Affected 222 office, anticipated heaviest expenditures later in
Total Business Structures June as the larger projects undertaken by his or-
Destroyed --------------------- 76 ganization got under way, and as statements be-
Total Business Structures came more numerous for supplies furnished.
Heavily Damaged --l------------ 56 of the number of known dead, there were
lotal .business Structures r , , .
. . L twenty-five colored, one being unidentified. The
wit ig it amage ~— 90 others were Dee Byrd, Clifford Banks, Flora Brad-
Total Structures of All Kinds George
Destroyed or Damaged___________ 992 vr i tv - ^ • , • n • u ~
JNelie Davis, Carrie Louise Davis, Mary Dorsey,
„. , Lizzie Jones, Louise (Kitty) Moss, Montine Rey-
I he entire number treated for first aid was , , T • ¦ , , , ,, „ .. .
..... . . nolds, Lizzie Reynolds, Loueilen Sadler, Charles
not available, due to treatments continuing so .. , T. . , _ _ „ . ,
, , , , , . , welborn Singleton, Lloyd Singleton, LeRoy Stnck-
long after the storm, and this was also true of , , „ . c ,, T w.
... . . . , . . land, Hattie Sadler, Joe lhompson, Llien waters,
typhoid antitoxins and tetanus inoculations for T wr.„. . r ... _
, Edgar Lee Williams, Molhe Butts Williams, Car-
the same reason. .
ne Lou Williams.
According to figures compiled by officials at
Gainesville headquarters of the Red Cross, there Photos or names of the whke dead are carried
11
were 252 patients hospitalized during the month e sew ere'
of April. First aid was given to many people -----------------
without taking names, so there was no accurate A hundred and eighty-nine white families,
record that month. refugees from the storm, registered with the Red
In May, there were 2,3 06 patients treated at Cross Tuesday, the first day the registration was
first aid stations. There were 1,776 patients re- open.
^ Page 7 3
Morton M. Rolleston (left), chairman, and General James H. Reeves, president,
Atlanta Chapter Red Cross, inspecting scrap book of storm presented Mr. Rolles-
ton at a luncheon in Atlanta May 21.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
M-arvelous Response to Appeals for Help
By Moreton M. Rolleston
Roll Call Chairman, Atlanta Chapter,
American National Red Cross
The Sunday, April 5 th, editions of the Atlanta
newspapers carried the announcement that
the local chapter of American Red Cross would
begin its annual Roll Call within a week.
The following morning, I went to the Volun-
teer State Life Building to help in the establishment
of Roll Call Headquarters. I had been there
scarcely ten minutes when my secretary at the
Georgia Power Company telephoned me that
Gainesville had been struck by a tornado.
Within a half hour, and at the instance of
William Carl Hunt, of American Red Cross, I was
on my way to the stricken city. My instructions
were to "set up Red Cross Headquarters imme-
diately and organize relief work.”
Within another half hour, the Executive Com-
mittee of the Atlanta Chapter had concluded to
abandon all thought of a membership drive—and
to use our entire resources to gather funds for
storm sufferers.
Thirty hours later I returned to Atlanta. Lack
of sleep—fatigue—all were forgotten when I en-
tered the Relief Fund headquarters. For, within
that thirty hours, citizens of Atlanta had poured
more than $50,000 into the coffers of Red Cross
for use at Gainesville.
? Page 74
Interior of Gainesville Motor Co.—a photographer takes a snap looking this way.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Georgian-American
The scene that greeted me was the most amaz-
ing I have ever witnessed. People from all walks
of life were fighting—actually struggling—to be
allowed to make their donations. They pushed,
shoved, waved money and checks above their
heads in an effort to have someone take their con-
tributions.
The small staff of paid workers of Red Cross
was grossly inadequate to handle the situation.
Volunteer workers applied by the thousands. At-
lanta banks sent tellers to help in the work of
counting money. Newspapers sent their report-
ers — radio stations their announcers to gather
material for dissemination to the public.
Late into the night of the 7th the mad scram-
ble of contributors continued. Many stood in line
for as long as an hour to give their money and
receive their receipts. When, after midnight, the
adding machines revealed the total, it was found
that more than $70,000 had been raised in the
City of Atlanta within, approximately, 36 hours
of the time the first appeal for funds was issued.
Better organized the following morning, the
confusion was not so marked—but the contribu-
tions continued to pour in. From all over Geor-
gio — from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and the
Carolinas, checks were received. Then more dis-
? Page 75
tant points began to respond. When the last
figures were computed, the Atlanta Chapter had
banked a total of $175,000.00. This amount, I
understand, was just about duplicated in dona-
tions from the balance of the state.
Many tales of generosity were written in those
donations. There was, for example, the meeting
of a number of Atlanta’s leading business men,
which resulted in the pledge of $20,000. Groups
of employers organized themselves, and sent their
committees gathering funds. These ranged from
a few dollars in smaller, lower paid industries, to
many thousands in such firms as Sears-Roebuck,
Rich, Davison-Paxon, Southern Bell Telephone,
Georgia Power, and the like.
At the other extreme was the following letter,
received from an old negro woman, and to which
two dimes were attached:
"Dear Red Cross, this is all the money i got
rite now, but i thort maybe it would keep sumbody
from hungry. It is more blessid to give than to
receev. I got 2 blankets on my bed which is warm
you can have.”
In a thousand lifetimes, I don’t believe anyone
will ever see a more perfect example of the blessed-
ness of giving than Red Cross experienced in the
response to the Gainesville Fund Appeal.

Wreckage, ruin, fire—looking toward Palmour Hardware store April 6
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
BRILLIANT RECORD IS MADE
By Henry M. Baker
Director Red Cross Relief, Gainesville and
Tupelo Areas
Rarely does a disaster affect either directly or
indirectly such a large percentage of the populace
as did the tornado which struck Gainesville, Ga.,
on Monday, April 6, 1936. It is reliably stated
that nearly every family in this beautiful com-
munity of approximately ten thousand people had
either a relative, a friend, or an acquaintance
among the dead or the injured. In spite of the
appalling loss of life and frightful devastation to
business establishments and homes, the spirit of
these people has been truly marvelous. Never in
my disaster experience of over sixteen years have
I found a community more courageous and more
united than Gainesville. It typifies American life.
It is an inspiration to work with these people.
With one accord they have united to assist the
grief stricken and help the injured and rebuild a
more beautiful city upon the wreckage of the old.
The Red Cross staff has received every possi-
ble assistance from the community. The atmos-
phere is that of one big family working together
to help those members who have been injured.
Religious, social, fraternal, and other groups have
given unstinted service. ,
When the final chapter of the rehabilitation
of Gainesville, Georgia, is written, it will rep-
resent one more brilliant page in the history of re-
construction and the rehabilitation of a thriving
home-like American city.
BENEFIT SHOWS ARE GIVEN
Benefit shows in more than seventy theatres
which do not usually operate were given Sunday,
April 19, under a plan announced by film distribu-
tors of Atlanta, in cooperation with the Georgia
Film Board of Trade. Programs were furnished
free of charge to theatre managers with the stipu-
lation that gross revenues would go to the Red
Cross relief fund, E. L. Cole, board secretary, ex-
plained.
First-run pictures with shorts and newsreels to
round out the programs were supplied. Receipts
were sent to Mr. Cole’s office for recording, after
which the funds were turned over to the Red
Cross.
"Chapters in the towns or counties in which
the theatres are located were credited with what-
ever money was raised by the benefit show,” Mr.
Cole pointed out. Theatres donated their services,
however, including personnel. Theatres were
located in both Georgia and Alabama, and the
revenue totaled several thousand dollars.
¦*" Page 7 6

South Main street looking toward Palmour Hardware Co., May 6.
—Photo by the Author
NEED CONTINUES GREAT
The gravest problem confronted by the Red
Cross and another reason for the continued ap-
peal for funds was the care of eighty families
whose breadwinners were killed by the Gainesville
tornado, Moreton Rolleston, chairman of the At-
lanta Red Cross relief drive, said a few days after
the storm.
"The widows and orphans will have to be
taken care of by the Red Cross until they are in a
position to support themselves,” Mr. Rolleston
said. "That’s why we who are in close contact
with the situation there are so anxious to raise
every cent possible to be used in this work.”
In the case of elderly women, the children in
the family must be sent through school and pre-
pared for a job, some requiring Red Cross aid
over a period of years, it was pointed out. In other
cases, the widows must be trained so they may
obtain and hold a job.
"More than 1,000 persons have applied to Red
Cross for help in re-establishing themselves,” Mr.
Rolleston said. "We find that about 800 homes
were destroyed or badly damaged. These are an
urgent problem, requiring a large share of the
emergency funds.”
Although more than $300,000 was contributed
to the fund being gathered by the Red Cross for
relief and rehabilitation, it was estimated by those
who had given careful study to the situation that
more than $700,000 would be needed to complete
the tremendous job presented by the devastation
wrought in both business and residential areas by
the tornado, so vast and varied were the needs
brought about through all phases of destruction.
VICTIMS CARRIED TO ATLANTA
Splendid efficiency was manifested in the re-
ception of Gainesville storm victims in Atlanta
when more than eighty, brought by two trains
and private cars, were provided medical aid in
hospitals of that city. More than 5 0 per cent of
these were reported to have spent fairly com-
fortable nights the next day after they were re-
ceived and some were rapidly recovering from
their injuries and the shock of the tragedy.
Before the first train reached Atlanta at 8:51
p. m. bearing eleven white persons and six negroes,
the Atlanta chapter of the American Red Cross,
headed by Julian Boehm, had arranged for ac-
commodations for more than 150 persons in
Atlanta’s hospitals.
Met at the terminal station by ambulances
from Atlanta’s thirteen funeral homes and es-
corted by selected members of the police motor-
cycle squadron, headed by Lieutenant Reggie Mc-
Lean, the first trainload of patients was hurried
to Grady Hospital. There they were greeted by Dr.
J. H. Hines, medical director, and complete staff
of physicians and nurses.
The second trainload of patients, arriving
shortly before midnight, was accorded the same
efficient reception, but all of the white patients,
numbering thirty-three, were distributed among
the private hospitals. Twenty-three negroes were
admitted at Grady.
Early Tuesday morning there were twenty-one
white patients at Grady, twenty-nine negroes,
thirteen at St. Joseph’s, six at Piedmont, six at
Emory, six at Georgia Baptist, and four at Craw-
ford W. Long.
? Page 77
Maple street looking east; former Z. T. Castleberry home at right.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Georgian-American
“GIVE FOR STRICKEN GAINESVILLE”
One of the outstanding editorials appealing
for aid for Gainesville appeared in The Atlanta
Journal of April 7, the day after the storm. It
follows:
"There should be instant generous response to
the Red Cross appeal for gifts to help the suffer-
ers in the Gainesville disaster. So urgent and so
great are the needs of our neighbor city that
Atlanta’s chapter of the Red Cross has abandoned
its annual roll call which was about to begin, and
is mustering all its strength to raise a relief fund.
Subscribers thereto, who contribute a dollar or
more will be given their 1936 Red Cross mem-
bership and will know that they are ministering
to human distress near at hand.
"The ties of friendship between Atlanta and
Gainesville have ever been of the closest. The
people of that lately prosperous and beautiful city
have cooperated with us in all manner of enter-
prises for the common weal and repeatedly have
been our generous hosts as well as our welcome
guests. Now they are in the grip of a terrible
calamity. The tornado that befell them yesterday,
demolishing fourteen city blocks, inflicted prop-
erty damage in excess of $5,000,000, injured hun-
dreds of persons, left hundreds destitute or home-
less and killed, according to the present count,
nearly two hundred. The utmost that we of At-
lanta can do will be sadly short of meeting the
great needs, but all that is merciful in our hearts
should answer liberally and at once.
"Given support that will tide her over the
present crisis, courageous Gainesville will master
misfortune with her characteristic spirit and will
emerge stronger than ever. But the immediate dis-
tress is overwhelming. Let us respond to the Red
Cross appeal as becomes good and human neigh-
bors.”
Amid the scenes of suffering residents of
Gainesville who had been spared from death or
injury crowded into the emergency headquarters
set up by the Red Cross at the First Methodist
church to make their own donations for the relief
fund. Some brought cash, some checks and others
food and clothing. Every person with dry shel-
ter opened his home to their less fortunate neigh-
bors. At one home thirty citizens were given
milk, the only safe beverage on hand.
Clergymen from Gainesville and surrounding
towns, more than a hundred of them, offered their
services at Red Cross headquarters. They were
assigned to various funerals where private serv-
ices were not arranged, and to other duties which
they gladly performed.
Page 7 S
Red Cross Is Careful Trustee
Of Relief Money Given To It
By Anne H. Miller
The Red Cross is maintained through the kind-
ness and generosity of the American people. With-
out human sympathy and brother-love, such an
organization could never exist. Because the funds
are derived from the very hearts of the people
and through their sacrificial giving, the Red Cross
must guard diligently these funds; the Red Cross
must be careful trustees.
The money which has flowed so generously into
Gainesville has come because of someone’s self-
denial. It came from families largely of very lim-
ited allowance; families who could not afford
luxuries.
From the Porterdale Mill community near
Covington came $917. Some High School gradu-
ates denied themselves the joy of the senior ban-
quet and sent $3 5. Sunday school classes gave
their pennies. A farm boy had 45 cents. It was
all he possessed. He saw and heard of the Gaines-
ville horrors and gave 2 5 cents of his small amount.
Children in the grammar school gave a play and
brought their pennies, amounting to a few dollars,
and gave them to the Red Cross. The Gainesville
Mill people gave out of their weekly income
$1,060. Although the Chicopee people were out
of work some weeks last fall, they gave $1,000.
Funds coming from denial and real sacrifice
must be guarded carefully. Not one penny must
be spent unless it is for need. That money must
not go for someone else’s luxuries; for something
they do not need. So the Red Cross must be far
more careful as trustees with this money given in
utmost confidence, than one would be with indi-
vidual spending. The Red Cross is a trust fund.
While the Red Cross must at all times be
trustworthy to the faith shown in them, on the
other hand with the advisory committee assisting,
all efforts will be made to see that no family is
left to suffer.
One case already completed here with complete
awards made, considered a family where the
breadwinner was killed. There was a wife and
two children left. The livelihood and education
of these children have already been arranged.
One child will be taken care of and educated. The
other child will be carried through high school
and also receive a business education. These chil-
? Page 79
dren will not have finished this planned education
until 1945. The Red Cross is to finance every need
until then.
In one locality in Bartow county when the
storm swept through in. 1932 there was a case
where the breadwinner was killed, leaving wife and
seven children. The Red Cross answered their
emergency. The Red Cross has continued caring
for them, feeding, clothing, shelter and education
being their necessities, and the Red Cross will
carry on until they are no longer dependent.
It is for such cases as these that the Red Cross
must be careful trustees of funds entrusted to
them. It is not during emergency only, but the
years and years ahead, while youngsters must
grow into manhood and womanhood and into self-
reliance, that the great, kind hand must be ready
to give support. That is perhaps the greatest thing
of all about the glorious Red Cross: its con-
stancy in support when all the excitement is gone,
and people must get back to the every-day fact
of living.
Stone J. Crane stated that the spirit of the
Gainesville people has been so fair and understand-
ing that the Red Cross has been able to proceed
with giving aid where needed, without the handi-
cap which may have been in other places where
some persons not informed on Red Cross collec-
tions and expenditures and not taking the trouble
to find out, had misled certain citizens by false
propaganda.
GREATER DESTRUCTION
THAN ’FRISCO
Otto F. Bading, of Atlanta, Ga., representative
of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, who was
a visitor to Gainesville Thursday, said the destruc-
tion here by the recent tornado was greater than
that by the earthquake in San Francisco. Mr.
Bading was in San Francisco at the time of the
’quake and went through the horrors of that dis-
aster.
He said that the fire that followed caused more
destruction than the ’quake itself and consequently
the loss from both ’quake and fire was greater than
from Gainesvile’s tornado, but without the fire the
loss was less than Gainesville’s.
"Only those who have seen the destruction
here can have any adequate idea of your recent
great storm,” Mr. Bading observed.

RED CROSS CHIEF PRAISES BREWER
A news story in The Atlanta Journal of April
19 told of the wonderful work of Jim Downey
Brewer, a Gainesville boy, in the identification of
the storm victims, a service he gladly volun-
teered.
When William Carl Hunt, Red Cross disaster
director, introduced his Gainesville staff to Ad-
miral Cary T. Grayson, national head of the relief
organization, the story said, his highest praise was
for a 20-year-old sophomore at Presbyterian Col-
lege, Columbia, S. C., who handled one of the
saddest and most trying jobs resulting from last
week’s storm—identification of the dead.
The young sophomore is J. D. (Jimmy) Brewer,
and he blushed to the roots of his blond hair when
Hunt, a veteran worker in several major dis-
asters, told the national Red Cross chief: "I have
never seen Brewer’s accomplishment equalled in
all my experience.”
A native of Gainesville and the son of Mr.
J. B. Brewer and the late Mrs. Brewer, Jimmy took
"French leave” from Presbyterian College when
he heard the first news of the storm having hit his
home town. Hitch-hiking, he arrived in Gaines-
ville a few hours after the devastating wind, de-
termined that his family was safe, then volunteered
his services with the Red Cross.
The task to which he was assigned proved one
of the most difficult of all, and once Jimmy got
into the swing of the work no one could replace
him. Therefore Red Cross officials appealed to his
college to grant him leave from studies through
Saturday.
Fresh from a college campus and its frivolities,
Jimmy plunged into a task which would have tried
older hands. He interviewed grieving families, he
reunited separated relatives, he located over 200
missing persons, and he succeeded in positively
identifying 15 5 dead, many terribly mutilated or
charred.
As Jimmy turned over his job to a successor
Saturday and returned to his studies at school
there still were 3 1 persons on the Red Cross rolls
listed as reported dead and 18 still missing.
"But I think many of these will be cleared up
because at first the same victims were reported
to us under different names, nicknames or initials.
The missing persons are showing up daily,” he
said, and just as the word was spoken a middle-
aged man whose name was on the missing list
called at headquarters to report his escape "with
only minor damage to my eyeglasses.
Jimmy traveled hundreds of miles, questioned
hundreds of persons and did quite a bit of amateur
detective work with articles such as watches, fobs,
keyrings and belt buckles, before he secured posi-
tive identifications of the tornado toll.
"The hardest task was in asking sorrowing
relatives to visit the morgues to aid us in iden-
tification of some small child or, in one case, their
only daughter,” he said.
A belt buckle was the only means of identifi-
cation of one victim, a watch and a ring given a
young girl by her fiance caused the only erroneous
identification, but this was rectified after burial.
Dental work proved the most positive means of
establishing names of the tornado victims. These
clues with a lot of day and night work are cred-
ited by the college boy with clearing up the storm
victims’ names. But Red Cross officials say more.
They say Jimmy Brewer, when he finishes col-
lege, will make a first-class detective, and that his
success depends much on determination, a level
head and unwillingness to quit before a task was
done.
INSTANCES OF SACRIFICE
Lambdin Kay, general manager of WSB,
pressed every available minute of time to the use
of the campaign for raising relief funds. Every
penny went immediately to the Red Cross for the
urgent needs in the Gainesville area. Some idea
of the touching sacrifices made by more fortunate
southerners on behalf of the storm victims is
given in the following letter to The Journal:
"I am nearly 81 years old, and have not made
a dollar in five years. My wife and daughter
make what little we have. We are sending you
$1.00 for the Gainesville storm sufferers and wish
we were able to send more. (Signed) Edwin Davis,
Central, S. C.”
Another said: "Enclosed find $2.00 for Gaines-
ville relief. We can sympathize with the people
of Gainesville as we were struck four years ago
by a tornado and our house unroofed. We re-
ceived help from the Red Cross. (Signed) L. A.
Guyton and Mrs. Guyton, Rt. 3, Cartersville.”
? Page 80
Poem on the Storm
The following beautiful poem by a Gainesville
poet appeared in The Gainesville News of April 29:
Sunset and Evening Star at Alta Vista
By Pollie Cunningham Mealor
Like a torch in the West
To lead the way,
Hangs the Evening Star
At close of day.
When the sun sinks to rest o’er Alta Vista
The city of our dead,
He leaves a glowing message
Of purple and gold and red.
We stand beside the lowly sod,
With wondering eyes,
And try with humble hearts
To read the message in the skies.
But while we cling to earthly love
We cannot understand
The writing on the wall above,
Done by our Father’s hand.
These colors all so brilliant
Soon shall fade away,
And leave our hearts disconsolate
Beside our mounds of clay.
Oh, cruel night of darkness
Thou canst not stay alway,
Ah, trusting heart be not afraid;
There is another day.
So never daring to look down,
Oh weary hearts your vigils keep,
And from behind the clouds of night
The Star of Hope will peep.
What tho’ the brilliant sun sinks low
And the colors fade in the West,
’Tis then the evening breezes blow
And nature sinks to rest.
’Tis then we hear the bird’s call
As he seeks his mate in the tree,
’Tis then the evening shadows fall
And the soul of man is free.
Like a torch in the West
To lead the way,
Hangs the Evening Star
At close of day.
DRIVE FOR $300,000 FOR BRENAU
First steps toward securing an endowment of
$3 00,000 for Brenau college were taken Wednes-
day at a meeting of the board of trustees held at
the college. Since the college and its properties
were severely damaged by the tornado of April 6,
the institution is seeking financing from the RFC.
In order to secure these funds, all mortgages must
be removed from the properties and for that pur-
pose the drive will center first in Hall county and
Gainesville, which will be asked to contribute
$3 3,000. This amount secured, officials stated,
will enable the institution to obtain the RFC loan
and begin promptly the necessary reconstruction
of the college proper and the damaged Dixie-Hunt
hotel, which is owned by the school.
Officials further pointed out that if local citi-
zens contribute this amount it will be a potent
stimulus when the drive reaches other sections.
"When alumnae learn that Gainesville and Hall
county were so generous,” one of the officials
stated, "they will be much more responsive when
they are asked to contribute.” The college has
opened campaign headquarters in the former
Western Union building on South Main street.
C. E. Lovett, of Atlanta, will manage the drive
and requests that all interested parties call on him
at the temporary offices.-—Gainesville Eagle, June
18.
PRINTERS GIVE TO FUND
Postponing the barbecue it had planned for
April 18, the Atlanta Master Printers’ Club sent
its barbecue fund of $2 30 to Gainesville to be
used for relief there. The money was sent jointly
to The Gainesville Eagle and The Gainesville News,
the editors being instructed to use the money
where it would do the most good. One of Gaines-
ville’s oldest printers in point of service, Herbert
Frank Cochran, lost his life in the tornado. He was
in the employ of the Rose Printing Co., at the
rear of Newman’s, Inc., and the building was
crushed. He left a wife and several children. No
other Gainesville printer or publisher sustained
serious injury.
? Page 81
View from Jackson building toward Dixie Hunt, smoke from The Hub at left.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Constitution

Legionnaires and Auxiliary do their Share
By W. L. Norton
Commander Paul E. Bolding Post No. 1, Gainesville
Legionnaires were on the job helping in every
possible way from the first moment they
could reach the stricken area after the storm had
hit. Members of the Paul E. Bolding Post No. 7
worked to a man in all the various capacities
where their services could be used.
They met with the Citizens’ Committees, re-
ceived and sent communications, assisted in trans-
portation, contributed supplies of all kinds, as-
sisted in removing debris, rescuing injured, extri-
cating bodies, and in short did a splendid job in
every case where they were called upon to assist.
I know I speak for the entire citizenry of Gaines-
ville when I say that deepest gratitude goes out
to the members of our Post.
Coming to Gainesville from all points in the
state and from points outside Georgia, were mem-
bers of other posts and members of the Auxiliary—
we will never forget these men and women who
stood by us so loyally!
We have tried since to compile a complete
record of those posts coming to our assistance, but
it is yet possibly incomplete. If any are not here
mentioned, it is not intentionally.
Outstanding in sending supplies were: Atlanta,
both posts; Athens, Rome, East Point, Miami, Fla.,
Dahlonega Veterans’ Camp F11; Cornelia, Haber-
sham Post; Cleveland, Winder, Commerce, Jeffer-
son, Lawrenceville, Buford, Ashland, Ala. Posts
rendering outstanding service in removing debris,
extricating bodies, etc., were: Cornelia, Haber-
sham, Winder, Commerce, Jefferson, Lawrence-
ville, Franklin, N. C.
Services we will never forget were also ren-
dered by members of the Eight and Forty, the
D.A.V. and the V.F.W., who evinced the same
willingness, the same cooperation, and who took
hold and executed difficult assignments through-
out the emergency period.
With hearts filled with gratitude we would
make an effort to thank them, on behalf of our
people. We can hardly do this adequately, how-
ever, for the service was too great. You came to
our rescue in our direst need, and we can only
say—God bless each and every one of you.
THE ATLANTA LEGION POST HELPS
By Robert A. Garner
Commander Atlanta Legion Post No. 1
It was a grim duty which faced our squad of
men when we boarded trucks for Gainesville Mon-
day, April 6. How grim we could not know until
? Page 82
we arrived and saw the devastation wrought.
Along with the hundreds of others who came
to the aid of the stricken city, we went to work
immediately after we got out of the trucks. All
the men had seen death and suffering in various
forms, and many had seen comrades fall never to
rise again, but that had been so long that memory
of its horrors had faded somewhat.
Here again were re-enacted some of the scenes
of long ago, though in a different form. They
helped take out mangled and injured ones, young
and old, worked in the rain, blood and mud, some
unceasingly for 72 hours, exhibiting much of the
Legionnaires bring foodstuffs to the stricken
city—scene at 3 a. m. April 7.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
stoicism, the heroism which had been theirs on
many a foreign field.
It was a big job, but they did their part of
it in a manner that spoke the courage and fortitude
which we knew they possessed, but which had
been lying dormant until the time it was most
needed. Gainesville will not forget them, and her
people will ever hold in grateful recollection the
work of the "overall boys” of our squad who did
such a splendid job when it was most^needed.
I want to let them know who the boys were.
Here are the names of that band who were so
fortunate as to be called upon to give their services:
R. A. Garner, J. W. Stevens, M. L. Boswell,
Geo. F. Stewart, Dave M. Richardson, Tiny Anglin,
Bob Baldwin, H. H. Jamison, S. N. Elliott, Ralph
Hooks, George Potter, Geo. Baker, Rob Roberts,
Bob Zachery, C. M. Honour, A. D. Savage, J. W.
Davis, L. S. James, A. L. Henson, Cecil R. Hall,
Kenneth R. Murrell, John M. Slaton, Julius A.
Setze, Oscar Cowan, Ernest P. Tomlinson, Henry
Berger, Henry E. Sanford, Ted M. Butler, H. H.
Dillard, L. P. Stephens, Frank Chalmers, Henry H.
Green, Frank Fling, Emil Hamm, William Hamm,
R. C. Endicott, Gen. James H. Reeves, Stone
Crane, Jos. R. Cook, Herman Loeb, David Block,
Ralph Wilner.
The Legion Auxiliary and the Eight and Forty
did much to help the people in Gainesville by send-
ing clothing, cigarettes and many other necessities
All the Legion Posts in and around Atlanta,
wth the D.A.V. and V.F.W.’s, did their part as
well as this Post.
In behalf of the Post and the people of Gaines-
ville, sincere thanks is returned to them, and to
other Post members who helped in many ways to
contribute to Gainesville’s sustenance and restora-
tion.
LEGIONNAIRES HELP
The issue of The American Legion Monthly
for June, 1936, published a most interesting arti-
cle entitled "Water, Wind and a Helping Hand.”
It told of the Legion’s help in the many areas
affected by flood and storm, and contained a pic-
ture of the ruins of the Gainesville City Hall.
Mention was made of the work done by members
of various posts, and of the supplies and funds
sent by posts from far and near.
Recounting the endless work made necessary
by the storm, the article related how Legionnaires
helped in removal of debris, clearing passages and
roadways, recovering lost property and lost chil-
dren, all of which proceeded along with the job of
feeding and housing the homeless, arranging hos-
pital facilities for the injured and removing the
bodies of the victims.
A news story in The Atlanta Journal April 7
stated that tornadoes the two days previous in the
South had taken a toll of over 400 lives and in-
flicted property loss of $3 0,000,000. Thus Gaines-
ville was by no means the only place where destruc-
tion was wrought by tornadic winds that weeK.
A Page 8}
Looking from Gallant-Belk Co. up North Bradford street. May 6.
—Photo by the Authot
MESSAGE FROM THE DEPARTMENT
PRESIDENT
Gainesville, Georgia, April 24, 1936.
The sixth day of April has twice been a fateful
day in the lives of Gainesville citizens.
It was on April 6, 1917, when the United
States declared war on Germany, exactly nineteen
years to the day from the time the tornado of
April 6, 1936, struck.
My heart goes out in gratitude for the splen-
did aid that was immediately rushed to our badly
damaged town in the recent disaster.
The Legion was among the first of the groups
to arrive on the scene, and they worked unceas-
ingly. The Auxiliary, too, has been invaluable,
and the much needed supplies that both groups
contributed were put to good use.
To say that I am grateful for what has been
done for my home town, doesn’t half express it.
Words fail at this time to show my appreciation.
The heartening expressions of comfort by tele-
phone, telegraph, and letters from all over The
Georgia Department of both the Legion and Auxil-
iary, and the material aid sent to our stricken town,
make me realize anew what a fine, loyal organiza-
tion ours is.
Sincerely,
HELEN ESTES,
Department President.
Calif., cowboy entertainers. They were in Atlanta
when the storm struck, and being members of the
American Legion, came up with members of the
Atlanta Post No. 1. They are both big strapping
fellows, dark skinned, their mother being of In-
dian and Spanish blood, and they were able to
render a great service in helping Legionnaires in
Gainesville, gladly contributing their knowledge
and physical assistance. They were completing a
tour of seventeen years over the world, entertain-
ing with cowboy stunts, sharpshooting, musical
features. Both spoke seven languages, and were
dressed in the picturesque cowboy style. Each had
played interesting parts in the silent pictures of
bygone years, and they knew "Buffalo Bill” Cody
well.
“TRAGEDY IN GEORGIA”
Possibly the most realistic dramatization of a
crushing catastrophe ever given over the air was
that presented in the studios of WSB, broadcast-
ing station of The Atlanta Journal, on the night
of April 17. It was entitled "Tragedy in Georgia,”
and presented events preceding and following the
tornado at Gainesville, beginning with a rehearsal
of the Sunday services the day before, with their
attendant pleasantries. Each tragic step was re-
traced on the storm date, presenting a powerful
appeal to those who listened in. It was written and
directed by Edna Lee, fashion editor of The Jour-
nal, who was assisted by Edgar Neeley, prominent
TOURING COWBOYS GIVE AID
Among the most interesting and romantic of
those giving assistance to Gainesville after the
storm were the Hamm Brothers, of Watsonville,
Atlanta attorney, and an able corps of players. The
hook-up included WSB and WATL in Atlanta,
WGPC in Albany, WTFI in Athens, WODW in
Augusta, WRBL in Columbus, WRGA in Rome
and WTOC in Savannah.
? Page 84
Wreckage, overturned freight car—looking from Gainesville Midland yards
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
EASTER SERVICES ARE HELD
Though only two of Gainesville’s churches for
white people escaped the storm’s fury, Easter serv-
ices were held as usual the following Sunday.
There was no display of finery—the services took
on more the spirit of thanksgiving and hope.
Members of the demolished Episcopal church
held services in Rev. Marshall Dendy’s badly dam-
aged Presbyterian church. The congregation of
St. Paul Methodist church joined with that of
the First Methodist in services at the latter church.
Services at the First Baptist were held in the Sun-
day School annex. Central Baptist was undamaged.
Residents of the negro section gathered in the
three badly damaged houses of worship which still
remained.
"Yes, there will be Easter in Gainesville,” Dr.
Dendy affirmed Saturday. "The darkness of
tragedy will not hide the faith and hope of our
people. In the darkest day of the history of man
the Son of God suffered death. But that day of
gloom preceded the day of light and victory, of
His glorious resurrection. We can see this light
too. We know that immortality is real. We have
lost many of our people, but we shall see them
again.
"When the Christian world awakens to rejoice
in the resurrection of Christ, Gainesville will rise
? Page 85
up in triumph of faith to worship and praise God
for His mercy and goodness to the living and for
His grace and glory towards the dead.
"Humanity has been at its best in this emer-
gency. More generosity, more thoughtfulness,
more love, more gratitude, more unselfishness, and
more sacrificial service has been revealed than our
state has perhaps ever witnessed. From one sec-
tion of our state and southland to the other, in-
deed from all over the nation, mankind has risen
to help his brother in need. Many of our dead lost
their lives trying to save the lives of others. The
spirit of the Gallilean has lifted those who have
given and those who have received into a higher
realm of life.
"Yes, Gainesville will go to church Easter
Sunday. Church buildings have been ruined and
wrecked, but the church of human souls has not
been touched. Where the dead recently lay in
our churches awaiting the rites of burial, the liv-
ing shall gather Easter Sunday to weep for the
loss of their bodies, yet to rejoice in the hope which
is ours through Jesus. With the strength we shall
receive from God we shall go out to build again
our stores, factories, homes and churches. But
most of all we shall seek to build the souls and
spirits of our people and of our children’s chil-
dren in the name of Him who has given us the
joy and victory of the Easter tide.”

HWW w: ¦

. -. aiAsfriaTarawa*

Looking from new Hall county jail toward Federal building, in upper left.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal

GAINESVILLE SAYS
“WE THANK YOU”
J. S. Pope, assistant managing editor of The
Atlanta Journal, was reared in Gainesville and had
a peculiar and abounding interest in serving the
stricken community in any way possible. He was
in the city for three days, and on Wednesday, two
days later, inquired of leaders if there was any
message, anything they wanted to send out in the
columns of The Journal to those who were fol-
lowing their misfortune hour by hour. The
unanimous response, in choked voices, was: Thank
them all. They have overwhelmed us with their
kindness.”
Dr. W. L. Logan, a foremost dentist here for
twenty-five years, said: "I bore up under what
I saw Monday and Tuesday because I was too
stunned to comprehend it. But when I picked up
the paper last night and saw what Atlanta and
other nearby cities had done, I cried like a baby.”
Deepest gratitude was also expressed by Mayor
W. A. Palmour, City Attorney J. Ernest Palmour,
H. H. Estes, president of the Chamber of Com-
merce, and such outstanding business leaders as
C. R. Hammond, John Jacobs, Owen McDermed,
John Hosch, Albert Hardy, Hayne Palmour,
James Rudolph, Sandy Beaver, president of River-
side Military Academy; Dr. H. J. Pearce, presi-
dent of Brenau; Ed Roper, and others.
As these men adjusted themselves to the ap-
palling loss of life and property, the article stated,
as they saw to its absolute nerve-shattering climax
the proportions of their disaster, they stood
dumbfounded, grateful, red-eyed, trying to ex-
press in terms that would be comprehended the
extent of their gratitude for a genuinely miracu-
lous job of salvation.
Money and food, pants and blankets, mattresses
and hats, overalls and shoes—they poured into
Gainesville with that organized precision and
passed immediately into the hands that were out-
stretched. All of this within twenty-four hours
of the time the tornado struck without warning.
One truck came from Atlanta loaded with flash-
lights and batteries.
U. S. COAST GUARD HELPS
The United States Coast Guard joined the other
governmental and relief organizations active Wed-
nesday, two days following the storm, in the
Gainesville storm area. A wireless communication
truck equipped to broadcast Morse and voice mes-
sages, arrived from the Jacksonville Coast Guard
division, and went into operation, supplementing
other lines of communication.
? Page 86
Editor The Journal: May we not have a bit of
space in your paper to say a few words of com-
mendation for the forgotten men and women of
the Gainesville tornado? These are the local doc-
tors and nurses of Gainesville, whose faithful work
in the terrible catastrophe at Gainesville has never
once been mentioned either by radio or newspapers.
It is true the people of Gainesville owe a bound-
less debt of gratitude to the American Red Cross,
the Salvation Army, the WPA, the CCC, and all
the other agencies, as well as the numberless vol-
unteer doctors, nurses, and undertakers from sur-
rounding cities and towns, who so unselfishly
rushed to their aid without waiting to be asked.
And Gainesville is grateful.
But these nameless doctors and nurses of
Gainesville were the first to give aid, rushing
from one wreckage to another, administering re-
lief as best they could, with what equipment the
storm had left them. (Gainesville’s one hospital
was in the path of the storm.) They, too, worked
on into the night, the next day and the next, side
by side with the volunteers from surrounding
cities, without sleep or rest, some administering
to their own friends or loved ones.
May we not give them, too, the praise that is
due them for their part in bringing relief to their
suffering neighbors?
Mention might also be made of those indi-
vidual citizens of Gainesville and elsewhere who
belong to neither organization nor group, but who
volunteered their services immediately for the re-
A Page 87
lief and rehabilitation work and who have worked
faithfully and unfalteringly since the catastrophe,
whose names will never be known, but who de-
serve praise and commendation as well.
Might not a word of gratitude be said for
them?
Buelle Smith,
April 18. Dahlonega, Ga.
MEN OF GOD WORKED ON
Editor The Journal: Only our Heavenly
Father can know how deeply grateful we people
of Gainesville are for everything you and other
great newspapers have done through your radio
station for us.
Your accounts of the awful tragedy and of
the wonderful response to the appeals for aid are
not exaggerated. Nor can they be.
We are glad that our beautiful Methodist
church, although badly damaged, could be used
as Red Cross headquarters. All other churches are
too badly damaged for such service.
It gives one greater faith in God and in
humanity as we see faithful pastors going night
and day under such harrowing service, and see
morticians and nurses and doctors driving them-
selves beyond physical endurance in ministering to
the distressed.
We stand amid the shambles dazed and dis-
tressed.
But the wonderful response given by everyone
has brightened our hopes and strengthened our

Letters and Messages about Tornado
Business activity indicated by crowded public square on May 6.
—Photo by the Author

Cooper Co. building cleared to ground a month after storm. May 6.
—Photo by the Author
determination, and out of these ruins we will build
a more beautiful city.
The church of God in all its denominations
will become more deeply rooted in the love of
Christ and we will remain here and in some way,
God only knows how, we will rebuild our church
buildings.
St. Paul Methodist Church was entirely swept
away, and scarcely a home among its neighbors
but was partly or totally destroyed.
To our many friends who have written to us,
we are deeply grateful. Our pastors did not all
escape without bruises, but our condition is so
much better than thousands of others that we can
only rejoice because we are able to go about trying
to represent our Lord and Master.
John F. Yarbrough,
April 18 Presiding Elder Gainesville District.
McDERMED EXPRESSES THANKS
Owen A. McDermed, president of the Gaines-
ville Rotary Club, former mayor and one of the
founders of the Piedmont Drug Co., wrote the fol-
lowing letter to an executive of The Atlanta Jour-
nal a few days after the storm:
"On your visit to our little city as a guest of
our Rotary Club last week you met with a body
of cheerful and happy men and women, to whom
the world looked bright—but today how different
they seem. Practically every building wrecked,
members of our club saddened by the loss of mem-
bers of their families and loved ones. Death took
its toll of two of our most valued members. Guy
Barrett and John Rogers were crushed by the
wreckage of the Pruitt-Barrett Ffartware Co.
building, and their bodies badly burned along
with eight others in the ruins of the building. But
we are carrying on and looking to the future
with hope.
"This spirit is inspired by the wonderful as-
sistance rendered by your paper and by WSB, who
in a few minutes after the disaster, though we
were cut off from the outside world by telegraph
and telephone, had spread news to the state and
nation. In a short time many organizations were
on their way to render assistance to a demoralized
and grief-stricken city.
"I cannot find words to express the apprecia-
tion we feel to everyone who through messages of
sympathy and liberal donations are doing so much
for us. I wish you would convey to every member
of your staff of the newspaper and broadcasting
station our sincere thanks and heart-felt appre-
ciation for the assistance given us.
"I would appreciate it very much if you
would in your news broadcast thank the Savan-
nah Rotary Club for a donation of $100, the
Griffin club for $5 0, the Rome club for $50, An-
derson, S. C., club for $50, and the Bessemer, Ala.,
club for $2 5, sent us to relieve the injured and
homeless.”
"Newspaper men saved the day for us in
Gainesville,” Miss Gay B. Shepperson, WPA ad-
ministrator for Georgia, said Tuesday, April 7.
"There was much confusion in Gainesville when
I arrived. It would have taken hours to get or-
ganized if the reporters hadn’t been there to help.”
? Page 88
EDITOR LAUDS THE JOURNAL
Royal Daniel, editor of The Quitman (Ga.)
Free Press, Wednesday, April 8, telegraphed the
following message to The Atlanta Journal:
"Your superlative coverage of Gainesville hor-
ror by WSB broadcast and Journal is incomparable
and most outstanding service of Atlanta Journal’s
long history. Sincere congratulations to all your
staff participating and grateful appreciation. Your
contribution to relieve anxiety magnificent.”
APPRECIATION
Editor The Journal: Just a line to express ap-
preciation of the splendid service given the public
in your frequent broadcasts of reports from the
storm-stricken sections. There is no calculating
the favor that this service rendered those of us
who had relatives and friends in those distressed
areas. For one I thank you.
D. R. Thomas
Tennille, Ga., April 17.
THE PLUCKIEST CITY
Editor The Journal: Much has been worthily
said concerning the heroic aid Georgia has given
our stricken mountain city of Gainesville, and it
is great to live in such a state. But having been
in Gainesville before and several days since the
appalling tornado, I wish to say for this city that
it has and is deserving all the assistance it is
given, and furthermore, that it is the pluckiest city
in Georgia.
After the first stunning, awful day Gainesville
gripped itself and had gone into action with a will
which will make it rise from this blow and become
one of the most beautiful cities in the nation.
And why not, with such bankers as Mr. John
Hosch, Mr. Ed Roper and Mr. Rafe Banks, along
with such eminent leaders as the mayor, commis-
sioners and most faithful of all, its efficient and
courteous police department. Too much cannot be
said of the mills of Gainesville. How unrelentingly
these lumber and mill forces are giving their time
and aid toward a rapid rebuilding of the city.
The impression may have been made that
Gainesville might have been lying down and let-
ting the state and the government do the work.
Far from that. Gainesville is the liveliest and
most energetic city in the world, and the vigor
and determination shown here predict a far greater
future for this section than it has ever known.
Those who have so liberally contributed to-

ward its help have not wasted one cent, for
Gainesville will never forget.
H. J. Chapman
Gainesville, Ga., April 17.
THANKS FROM THE LEGION
Editor The Journal: I wish to take this oppor-
tunity to thank you for the cooperation given this
office in the distress calls for the needy in Gaines-
ville, Ga.
Your cooperation enabled us to collect and
deliver to Gainesville as much clothing, groceries
and other supplies as were needed for the emer-
gency.
If at any time in the future the Legion can be
of service to you, we will be at your command.
Robert A. Garner,
April 18 Commander Atlanta Post No. 1.
RED CROSS GIVES THANKS
Gainesville, Ga.
Red Cross Headquarters,
Maple Street,
June 3, 1936.
Mr. Austin F. Dean,
Editor Gainesville Eagle,
Gainesville, Ga.
Dear Editor:
The Red Cross would like to take this method
of thanking you and showing our appreciation for
your splendid editorials which have appeared from
time to time in your paper regarding the American
Red Cross.
These editorials have been one of the greatest
assets to this organization in carrying out our
plans for the best for the community, by explain-
ing to thinking people the process and procedures
of Red Cross activities.
We also are very appreciative of the generous
weekly space given our news articles.
Sincerely yours,
Stone J. Crane,
Assistant Director Red Cross.
President Roosevelt, on his visit April 9, was
told by Henry Estes, president of the Gainesville
Chamber of Commerce, that the sorrow-stricken
citizens of this city "are sternly grateful to the
New Deal agencies so close at hand which took
charge of the paralyzed town with equipment,
man-power and undazed leadership immediately
after the storm struck.”

at®
? Page 89
Looking from Courthouse yard toward City Hall building. May 6
—Photo by the Author
THE QUEEN CITY
Gainesville’s courageous and far-visioned lead-
ers will undoubtedly embrace their opportunity to
create one of the most beautiful cities in the
nation. Out of the tragic aftermath of their dis-
aster has come a merited recompense. United States
Army engineers have drawn plans for a civic cen-
ter which, it is safe to say, will excel in distinction
and utility the physical make-up of any city of
like size anywhere.
The plan of devoting a block each to the new
court house and city hall, with the buildings sur-
rounded by spacious parks and with both of them
placed in a symmetrical rank which will include
the new federal building and post office, is one
wholly in harmony with advanced ideas of civic
design. With the money already voted in court-
house bonds, that to be realized from sale of the
old city hall site, and that accruing from tornado
insurance, Gainesville and Hall county will ac-
tually have to supply only about one hundred and
fifteen thousand dollars additional to secure a
five hundred and fifty thousand dollar asset, the
Federal Government being willing to grant more
than half the amount.
Always rich in attained and potential civic
beauty, Gainesville can now step forward as an
acknowledged leader. It will be a brave gesture
to show the world she has emerged triumphant
from the shadow of her catastrophe.
—Atlanta Journal.
PRESIDENT RELATES STORY
During the conference with the relief officials
and civic leaders here April 9, President Roosevelt
related the story of two Mormons who were re-
sponsible for the beautiful planning of Salt Lake
City. These two men were en route from Savan-
nah to Salt Lake City, Utah, when they stopped
over in Macon just after a disastrous fire, the
President said.
When Macon rebuilt, its citizens laid out streets
two hundred feet wide to prevent spread of fires
and to beautify the city. Soon after the two Mor-
mons reached Salt Lake City it, too, was destroyed,
and when the task of rebuilding was started that
city also was beautifully and expansively planned
at their suggestion, following out the Macon ex-
ample, he related.
Tired physicians, embalmers and their aides
rested briefly after a day and night of toil. The
doctors labored under severe handicaps but the
loss of life among the severely injured was small.
? Page 90
Front view showing damage to the Pacolet Mill at New Holland
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
A GOOD SUGGESTION
Editor Journal: I have just returned from
Gainesville. I realize that no one can describe the
horrors of that place and that one must see to be-
lieve. That is why I am writing this.
I will never doubt the power of the Lord, and
my faith has been sustained in the Red Cross, the
(earthly mother of the people.
I think that every person should go to see for
themselves. I think they would come away a better
man or woman. If they were allowed to pay a
(dollar for a pass and let the money go toward help-
ing those people in rebuilding their homes, I feel
that most of the people would feel just as I do,
that we have many things to be thankful for.
Mrs. Alma Kehoe,
1312 West Peachtree St., Atlanta.
RED CROSS WILL NOT STOP
"The emergency period here at Gainesville has
almost been finished and we are now entering the
period of rehabilitation, family by family,” said
William Carl Hunt, Red Cross director, on April
2 0. "The Red Cross will not stop short at
stricken families’ immediate needs. It will shoul-
der the responsibility that these families will be
permanently rehabilitated so that they will not be
a burden on the community.”
BENEFIT SHOW FOR FUND
A hundred entertainers participated in the
midnight shows held Saturday evening, April 11,
at 11:30, at the Georgia Theatre, to raise funds
for the sufferers in the Gainesville tornado. All
stage hands, musicians, operators, engineers, per-
formers, and house employees — everybody in-
volved, in fact—contributed their services so that
every penny received at the box office went to
relief agencies. Two complete stage shows were
combined for the occasion, and the fund realizsd
helped greatly in the relief of storm suffering in
Gainesville.
MILL EMPLOYEES DONATE
Mill employees at Gainesville and Chicopee
Mills Friday, April 10, donated their day’s work
toward the Red Cross fund being raised to relieve
suffering. It was the Gainesville mill which bore
the brunt of the tornado here thirty-three years
ago.
Firemen of Gainesville, on duty at the time of
the tornado, had a narrow escape. Windows in the
room where the night men sleep were smashed, and
the debris from the city hall blocked the entrance
so that they could not get their trucks out. The
trucks were not damaged.
? Page 91

THANKS ARE SO LITTLE
(Editorial, Gainesville Eagle, April 30, 1936)
Word continues to come in from every nook
and cranny of the Southland and elsewhere of the
wonderful response given Gainesville in her hours
of such urgent need. It seems that every person
who learned of the disaster not only sympathized
deeply with Gainesville but wanted to do some-
thing, be it little or large.
Gainesville should feel especially grateful to
Athens and Atlanta. WTFI, the Liberty Broad-
casting Company, gave their full facilities to re-
ports of the storm and needs of the city for three
whole days. The Atlanta Journal radio station,
WSB, broadcast throughout several days complete
details, both of events and wants, whereas during
the first hours Monday, every program was can-
celled in frantic calls for help.
Athens broadcast a need for candles and lan-
terns. So many were brought to the radio station
that it required trucks to cart them to Gaines-
ville. Another call went out for sandwiches, and
Athens sent so many that the city was notified to
stop; it was sending more than could be con-
sumed.
The response of that city in money contribu-
tions, even as that of Atlanta, stands as an achieve-
ment par excellence. This is no reflection upon
other contributing cities and towns, not by any
means; but it so happened that the city’s nearest
neighbors were also the most generous.
The letters that have come in from unknown
persons the nation over tell a story all their own.
Many of these contributors do not know Gaines-
ville, have not seen the destruction except via pho-
tographs, but in their hearts there runs a warm
stream of sympathy and compassion. Many a let-
ter came just from "A Contributor,” showing that
there was absolutely no thought of self,* while
others came in with their names only on the checks.
Gainesville will never forget this kindness. It
will live long after the ravages of the tornado are
erased, long after the new city has arisen.
The acts were those of the Good Samaritan.
They came to the rescue of a stranger who had
fallen by the side of the road.
The acts, as exemplified by the Atlanta nurse
who gave her life for succor of the injured and
relief of the dying, were those of the Master who
died that men might be free. Gainesville was
chained to a monster of destruction that would
have throttled the life out of her had not these
friends from near and far, like the nurse, Miss
Leona Moore, rushed to her rescue and forgotten
themselves in her behalf.
The gratitude of Gainesville will never be ex-
pressed adequately. It is evidenced, however, by
the courageous attitude of the citizenry. Gaines-
ville is coming back, bigger and better than ever,
and that reconstruction is in large part due to the
inspiration given by these friends.
Thanks are so little when it comes to showing
Gainesville’s appreciation. But there is in the
hearts of every one in this community a fire that
will never burn out. It is the flame of friendship,
one of life’s sweetest blessings, kindled when dis-
tress ravaged home and fireside and which will
burn until the western sun closes the eyes of those
saved on April 6.
But before the sinking sun reveals the mystery
of Infinity, those saved on April 6 will have
passed the story of that day on to their children,
and in new and younger hearts the same fire will
be rekindled to flame onward into Eternity.
Bread cast on the waters has never failed to
return a hundred-fold.
WEEKLY PRESS HELPED
The weekly newspapers of Georgia did a fine
service for Gainesville in their various communi-
ties, in making appeals for funds and supplies, and
in telling the harrowing details so that their read-
ers might know the real need. Of course their
circulations were not as large as the big dailies, but
in each individual community the subscribers of
these papers knew the situation through the me-
dium of their local papers and responded nobly to
the appeals in the news columns and editorial pages.
Weekly newspapers wield an influence and cover a
field which can be reached through no other me-
dium, and the success of the Golden Jubilee meet-
ing at Milledgeville revealed that their popularity,
their substantial growth, is not waning. Gaines-
ville is grateful to the Georgia weekly press —
grateful for what each individual editor did toward
helping our city and section in a crucial period of
our history.
Nature, In All Her Beauty,
Still Stands Forth Beyond
(Gainesville Eagle, May 17)
(The Eagle passes this experience on to its
readers because it carries a suggestion of inesti-
mable value. Gainesville is storm-stricken, devas-
tated. Death and destruction are here. But just
beyond, only a short distance, all the glories of
Nature lie waiting and blossoming to instill new
faith and new courage to him who calls at her
door. Get out, as often as possible; it will do more
than anything in the world to remind you that
God is still in the heavens and all is right with the
world. . . . Editor’s note.)
By W. M. Brice
We had a tryst with Nature today-—-my wife,
the two little ones, Don, aged 4, and Jean, going
on two, and myself.
We got in the car and, weaving through the
traffic jam of thousands who had come to see what
is left of our town, we headed for the outdoors,
leaving the dust-filled, crumpled ruins through
which we had for two weeks moved as in a daze.
Soon we drew up in front of a typical country
church, Corinth, its white-painted walls rising
amid a setting of spring beauty like a white dia-
mond in a gorgeous green mounting. Fresh mounds
bore silent witness to the storm’s ravages.
We walked across and down a violet-bordered
path past the school hbuse, which is across the road.
Soon we came into the heart of the woods. The
wind was cool and sweet on our faces. It bore the
fragrance of innumerable crab-apple blossoms. I
went to a crab-apple tree, gently pulled down a
bough so as not to disturb the bumblebees and
honey bees and buried my face in the blossoms.
I wasn’t ashamed when my eyes misted. It seemed
so long since I’d been in the woods, though in
reality it was only two weeks.
Looking around, we could now revel in the
lavish beauty before us. There were dogwood in
profusion upon the hills and in the hollows—now
in full bloom and nodding in the breeze which
soughed through the tops of the high pines. Tall
poplars were covered with young leaves, while at
their feet sweet-shrub and wild honeysuckle were
clothed in green. Soft beds of moss mantled be-
tween the roots of the poplars.
Walking on, we came to a rock-fringed spring
—the spring where happy school boys and girls
slake their thirst on hot summer days. The waters
? Page 93
from this spring, pure and crystal clear, flowed
into a small brook that wound through ivy-bor-
dered banks on into the deep recesses beyond.
Both the children are acquainted with streams.
When we go to a river they immediately want to
"frow a rock in.” When we go to a brook they
want to hunt crawfish. Picking up a dead limb,
I delved amid the rocks of the stream and soon a
large crawfish scuttled out and swam backward
rapidly to another retreat beneath grass-like roots.
A pair of doves flew over our heads, their
swift wing-beats making a distinct swishing
sound. They settled in the boughs of a huge pine,
where their gentle cooing bespoke their plans for
rearing a family.
Through a carpet of dead leaves we walked
deeper into the woods, and there the four of us
rested awhile, surrounded by the delicate wild iris,
violets, honeysuckle which was beginning to bloom,
dogwood and crabapple.
But we had been here before, and I knew where
the arbutus could be found. Arising, I climbed a
steep hill, covered with ivy which faced the west
—arbutus, you know, does best on such a hill.
Shortly I found that which I sought, a bed of
dull-colored leaves protruding from among pine
needles. Pushing the needles aside, I found be-
neath a fan-shaped sheath of blossoms — white
blossoms with a tinge of pink. Plow fragrant they
were!
Mr. Hayne Palmour had said to me only a day
or two before the storm, "There is a sentiment at-
tached to arbutus for me which I can never hold
for anything else—that is, finding the first ones in
the spring. I’m going to get some soon.” He has
had so much sadness I hope he went today. I do not
know if he knew it, but never a spring passes that
I do not hunt arbutus.
My soul has been washed clean again, it seems.
Our tryst with Nature, after two weeks in which
we have seen, thought, dreampt and moved amid
the desolation of our home city, has laved our souls
and renewed our spirits to take up again the tasks
which lie ahead.
Gainesville, Ga., April 19, 1936.
Spring foliage aided in concealing much dam-
age wrought by the elements a few weeks after
the storm, as thousands of workmen throughout
the city and its suburbs worked on private and
public contracts of rebuilding.

The National Guard at Gainesville
HEADQUARTERS 122nd INFANTRY
GA. N. G.
AUDITORIUM ARMORY
Atlanta, Georgia
Subject: Official Report of Duty Performed by
the Georgia National Guard in Gainesville
Tornado Emergency.
To: The Adjutant General of Georgia, 12 Capi-
tol Square, S. W., Atlanta, Georgia.
Pursuant to orders of the Governor of Georgia
received at 9:15 A. M. April 6, 1936, Colonel
Thomas L. Alexander, commanding the 122nd
Regiment of Infantry of the Georgia National
Guard, immediately directed the officers and men
of his command to lay aside all civil occupations
and civil duties and at once report to the Audi-
torium Armory in Atlanta, Georgia. The orders
of Colonel Alexander were duly transmitted to
the officers and men of his command by radio, tele-
phone, and telegraph. In accordance with said
orders the officers and men of the regiment as-
sembled as soon as the armory could be reached,
with each man clothed with his woolen Olive Drab
Uniform, with full field equipment. All available
Medical Supplies, Field Kitchens and woolen
blankets which had not previously been issued to
the assembled troops were loaded on trucks.
The military force proceeded to the tornado
stricken area by way of Lawrenceville, Georgia.
All along the route trucks passed the City of
Lawrenceville, a traffic jam was evidenced. The
soldiers cleared the highway of unnecessary traf-
fic. It was then found necessary to post highway
guards along the highway to caution through traf-
fic to avoid the storm area, and in order to turn
curiosity seekers back. It was deemed necessary to
hold adequate highway space open for emergency
traffic such as doctors, nurses, ambulances, troops
and such other relief workers as were necessary.
This officer with his detail of troops arrived in
the storm area at 2:15 P. M. and thereupon as-
sumed control and command of the area affected
by the storm, with Major Walter B. Elliott acting
executive officer. Military Headquarters were es-
tablished in the county jail of Hall County with
the consent and approval of the local authorities.
Adjutant General of Georgia, who has been in
touch with the storm area for some time and who
has well estimated the situation, informed this
officer of known conditions.
It was found that the tornado had whiplashed
and devastated Gainesville and the nearby coun-
? Page 94
West Spring street with wreckage cleared away a month later. May 6.
—Photo by the Author
View from Smith Bros, northward; Crescent Co. in center; May 6.
-Photo by the Author
try. There were many known dead and many
known injured and homeless. It took but a
moment to realize that this was the worst catas-
trophe in the history of the State of Georgia. The
tornado left a path of ruined buildings from West
Broad and West Washington streets, through the
heart of the business section, out the same streets,
and hit with unmitigated fury on New Holland.
Hardly a business house remained undamaged in
the City of Gainesville, and many of the buildings
in said section were completely demolished. Among
these were the four-floor building of Pruitt-Barrett
Hardware Company and the three-floor Palmoui
Hardware Company which were then burning in
the rain. Among the other well known buildings
completely ruined were the three-story Dixie Hunt
Hotel, and Geo. P. Estes building. The Cooper
Company, known as the Pants Factory, was com-
pletely ruined and many of a force of one hundred
and twenty-five girls were known to be trapped in
this structure. The smaller buildings were found
roofless, fronts smashed into masses of bricks in
the business district. Most churches had been dam-
aged. Hundreds of homes of the white and negro
districts were completely destroyed. There were
no streets, no established means of communication,
no electric system. Chaos reigned.
The people in Gainesville were found greatly
demoralized, grief-stricken and unable to exercise
the care and judgment of ordinary prudent per-
sons. They were aware of a large death toll and of
a large per cent of injured. They were uncertain
and eager to learn of the whereabouts and the con-
dition of their friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
The local sworn ministers of the law, on account of
the gravity of conditions which existed, were un-
able to restore order out of the chaos. These offi-
cers were eager to cooperate and to assist in every
possible way, but realized that affirmative action
must be taken while the people tried to hold soul
and body together in the trying situation.
The outside world was eager to render every
possible assistance and many rushed to the aid of
the area. The troops were called upon to render
many different services during the emergency
which will be mentioned in this report, but one of
the first undertakings of the troops was the co-
ordination of the various relief agencies. Among
these worthy organizations were the Red Cross,
Salvation Army, the American Legion, Fire De-
partments of nearby cities, the details from police
forces from other cities. These organizations were
contacted and the plans made for coordination of
activities of all concerned. Volunteer workers,
including doctors, nurses, undertakers, and others,
were given jobs to do and directors appointed.
Committee of local citizens rendered every pos-
sible assistance and support from the moment ap-
pointed until the last troops left the area. Had it
not been for the loyal assistance given by this
body, the work of the troops would have been
more difficult. This body realized that the troops
were citizen soldiers who had left their many
places of employment and gone into the storm area
to assist them and to help lead the distressed per-
sons out of a bad situation.
In addition to' their other duties, the troops
kept a vigilant guard both day and night over the
business houses and homes in the storm area in
order to avoid violence, looting and stealing. Per-
r Page 95
in 111
Top, trying to clear wreckage at corner of Spring and Main streets.
Bottom, five-ton steel beam on top of Crescent Ice Cream Co. storage chamber
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
? Page 96
West Spring street a shambles on April 6; High school, right background.
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
sons were prohibited from occupying or passing
any street, road or place in the vicinity which had
been restricted. Persons on others’ property or
strangers found loitering on the street, roads, and
in the storm area were cautioned to leave the com-
munity before nightfall. Persons found roaming
around in the night-time without any reasonable
cause therefor, were taken in custody and held
until daylight, fed and ordered to depart without
delay. This property was exposed without adequate
protection.
The troops established and operated kitchens
on the public square in Gainesville, in the New
Holland Mill district, and in the negro section of
Gainesville, which was destroyed so completely
along the Athens road. These kitchens were oper-
ated by the National Guards, mess sergeants, cooks,
and kitchen police and fed approximately 60,000
meals to the refugees of the storm area during the
tour of duty. The rations were purchased by the
supply officer of the National Guard from funds
furnished by the State of Georgia and supple-
mented by funds from the Red Cross. There was
a kitchen operated by the Salvation Army. The
Salvation Army was of great assistance in the
storm area.
The troops kept and operated a fleet of thirty-
five trucks and ambulances available for use
? Page 97
wherever needed. These trucks were in constant
use transporting food, clothing, medical supplies
and for the distribution of furniture and bedding
to the various hospitals and first aid stations, as
well as transporting persons, doctors and nurses
to the hospitals and aid stations and quarters. The
trucks were also used to haul personal belongings
of widows and such persons in distress caused by
the storm. Most of the guard details were posted
without the use of transportation, but trucks were
used for posting guard details on the highways
leading into the City of Gainesville, during the
period that unnecessary traffic was turned back
on these highways. The troops furnished such
clothing, woolen blankets, cots, tents, and othet
supplies as were available for the relief of the
storm area during the emergency.
The troops and volunteers lost no time in re-
moving the good people from the area in which
there was threatening and imminent danger of
falling buildings, walls, timber, etc. National
Guardsmen were posted in order to keep persons
from being injured in the panic and tumult until
dangerous places could be roped off, and until the
streets could be cleared for emergency vehicles.
The troops supervised and cleared the streets of
fallen buildings, wires, poles, etc. The anxious
people who were found in dangerous places seek-

••
West spring street partially cleared, business resumed. May 6.
—Photo bv the Author
ing information concerning loved ones were sent
to emergency hospitals to await news.
Major Elrod, Medical Corps of the Georgia
National Guards, reported and directed the work
of the medical troops in the area which included
the 114th Hospital Company under the command
of Captain Howell and the Medical Detachment of
the 122nd Infantry under the command of Major
Edgar H. Greene. Emergency hospitals were es-
tablished and operated at the First Methodist
church, the alms house, negro Masonic hall, and
negro school building. First aid stations were es-
tablished and operated at the First Methodist
church, Federal building, county jail, New Hol-
land Mills and at the Chicopee Mills. The Medical
Corps men assisted in locating the dead and in-
jured and directed the transportation of same to
the First Methodist church where the bodies were
to be identified, and the injured cared for. The
medical force assisted in transporting the seriously
injured to the trains which evacuated these to the
following Atlanta hospitals: Emory University.
Crawford W. Fong, Piedmont, St. Joseph, Grady,
Georgia Baptist, Henrietta Egleston, and Harris
Memorial Hospitals.
A nearby lake was turned directly into the
main pipes to fight fire. Due to the unusual drain
on the water supply, water systems were no longet
pure. The people were warned not to drink the
water unless it was boiled first. The Coca-Cola
Company assisted by furnishing water in barrels
as soon as the need was suggested. General Reeves,
of the Red Cross, arranged to have new gasoline
tanks which had never been used for gas, filled
with pure drinking water which was placed about
the city by the Standard Oil Company and Texas
Company, in order that the needs would be pro-
vided for without further danger of adding to the
suffering.
The State Department of Health established
typhoid inoculation stations where people filed to
secure the typhoid shots in order that they might
be sure not to endanger the community with this
disease. Troops cooperated in this measure. They
also assisted in establishing quarters for the home-
less and refugees. These were placed in public
buildings, homes of public-spirited friends and
relatives who were so fortunate as to have a shelter
still standing.
On Sunday, April 12, it was the desire of the
troops and the people of Gainesville that the pub-
lic at large be invited to come to Gainesville to
view the remaining evidence of the storm, and
the public was so invited. The troops mapped out
a circuit for the traffic and caused the visiting
vehicles to keep moving through the area in order
that the greatest number of people possible could
view the area. A large number of persons were able
to see the area which was struck by the storm. They
were only able to get an idea of the damage done
as the debris had been removed, telephones and
electric systems established.
The people in Gainesville were going forward
building, but passersby will long note the ruins
caused by the storm. A traffic count was had on
the Atlanta highway between 9:00 A. M. and 5:00
P. M. No official count was made on any of the
? Page 98
The public square again clean, though trees show ravages of storm.
—Photo by the Author
other several highways leading into the City of
Gainesville.
National Guard troops on duty in the storm
area at Gainesville worked hard. They did their
best. No person was injured after the arrival of
the troops in Gainesville.
The troops have withdrawn from the storm
area, leaving same at 9:00 A. M. this date and
have returned to home stations to resume their
various civil occupations in different walks of life.
They reached home station at 10:15 A. M. The
experiences of this tour of duty will long be re-
membered by the troops and should such distress
again be witnessed in the State, they will be better
qualified to serve the stricken area.
THOMAS L. ALEXANDER,
Colonel Infantry, Ga. N. G.
H. H. Estes, Pres. Horace P. Hawkins, Sec.
Gainesville Chamber of Commerce
GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA
May 28, 1936.
Mr. W. M. Brice,
City
Dear Sir:
It is rather difficult even after the first stress-
ful days and weeks have passed since the tornado
to recall the series of events which transpired in
such rapid-fire order, and the part each organiza-
tion had in bringing order out of chaos.
It was a tremendous job which faced all of us,
and one of the greatest problems was to think
clearly and determine what first to do. Rescuing
those who were pinned in almost every conceivable
manner, caring for the injured and providing sus-
tenance and help were of course paramount. We
considered it also an immediate necessity to clear
the way for traffic so that access could be had to
the various emergency hospitals, clinics, first aid
stations and undertaking establishments.
Whereas clearing away the heavy debris de-
posits at random with numerous crews was first at-
tempted, we gradually concentrated larger crews
on important arteries of traffic, and were able to
open up a principal street through the city in a
few hours.
This done, members of our body went about
the task of helping in every possible manner to
bring about a measure of normalcy even in the
face of such a staggering blow. Through the
medium of meetings, consultations, exchanging
of ideas and plans, we were able to assist the vari-
ous splendid outside agencies and organizations
which so promptly came to our rescue.
It is manifestly impossible to say now, or ever
to fully express, our deep gratitude to every one
of those who so unselfishly and unstintingly gave
of themselves and of their means to help us. Each
one can know, however, that these services, these
ministrations, will forever provide a shining
memory in the hearts of Gainesville citizens,
proving the oasis in an otherwise desolate setting.
Very truly yours,
H. H. ESTES.
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PATH OF THE TORNADO
J. S. Pope, assistant managing editor of The
Atlanta Journal, wrote the most comprehensive
outline of the path of the storm and damage
wrought, for the issue of April 7. Outlining the
tornado’s path, he said in part:
“The tornado started at the foot of West
Washington street, and swished through the nar-
row valley that lies between Washington and
West Broad. Nothing was left standing in that
area. Broad street was the southeastern boundary
of the destruction until the old Gainesville Mid-
land depot was reached.
"There the path flared suddenly to sweep with
almost uncanny precision across the heart of the
business district.
"The courthouse and city hall left but little
for the wreckers to move away. At this point the
path of the tornado was marked by Brenau ave-
nue and Church street, though minor damage oc-
curred outside this range.
"At South Green street, as though deflected
by the new federal building, the twister veered
eastward and rode across the residential section
lying between Spring and Summit streets.
"From, the high ground by the razed court-
house the prospect toward New Holland was
one of contorted wreckage, with hardly a wall left
standing.
"That course was maintained past New Hol-
land.”
FEDERAL COURT POSTPONED
Judge E. Marvin Underwood, of the Gaines-
ville division of United States District Court, and
Jon Dean Steward, clerk of Federal Court, visited
Gainesville Wednesday, April 15, and announced
that because of damage wrought in the tornado
and lack of hotel accommodations, the court would
not transact any regular business at the spring
term, scheduled to open Monday, April 27.
"Those people are too busy rebuilding their
homes and stores to bother with court sessions,”
Mr. Steward declared. "They appreciated Judge
Underwood’s personal interest in coming up
there.”
He said workmen were erecting a temporary
roof on the courtroom of the new federal building.
"The courtroom and Judge Underwood’s office
were badly damaged from rain leaking through,
but my office is unharmed,” Mr. Steward said. A
mark on the wall of the judge’s office showed where
a brick passed through the window and hit
against it.
Grand jurors and traverse jurors who had been
served for the April term were to be served either
at a special term or in November, Mr. Steward
said.
NORMAL LIVING MADE DIFFICULT
Imagine your radio, electric refrigerator, water,
gas—all conveniences of the modern home—cut
off from one to several days, and you have some
conception of the difficulties under which Gaines-
ville people labored after the storm. Oil lamps,
candles, lanterns, flat top heaters, and many other
devices relied upon in a former day and age, were
brought into use, and these people quickly ad-
justed themselves to a schedule known and used by
their forebears, whose courage and fortitude was
transmitted unsullied by time and conditions of
life to descendants worthy to perpetuate their
memory.
ENGINEER FORESAW SIGNS
Engineer J. W. (Uncle Bill) Eskew of the
Southern Railway, was held up thirty minutes
with train No. 37 at Lula, on June 1, 1903, when
the cyclone hit Gainesville at that time. He was
piloting his train on the morning of April 6 this
year and when he reached Gainesville, heavy clouds
hung low in the west. At 8:26 he remarked to
his fireman: "Buddy, let’s get away from here—
there’s going to be a storm.” It struck shortly
after his train had pulled out of the city.
CAT FEARED ANOTHER STORM
Mr. W. H. Minor, who operates the Bee Hive
Market, owned a large old cat which had been at
his market a long time. The cat was caught among
falling timbers and had its back badly hurt before
it was extricated, recovering very slowly from its
hurts. Several weeks after the storm the cat was
seated in a window at the market when a wind
cloud came up, and when a gust of wind blew in
the window to the accompaniment of a peal of
thunder, the cat jumped down to the floor and
ran as fast as its legs would carry it to the farthest
recesses of the market, hiding under a heavy coun-
ter. Not bad reasoning at that, Mr. Minor stated.
Blazing ruins of C. V. Nalley Co. and Pruitt-Barrett Hardware Co.
—Photo Courtesy Ramsey’s Studio, Gainesville
WATL Is First on the Air
Mr. J. M. Swicegood, general manager of Radio
Station WATL, of Atlanta, gave the author the
interesting history of that station’s work follow-
ing the storm, after this history was begun. WATL
was first on the air from Gainesville, he said,
broadcasting from the emergency station at 124
West Broad street on Monday with appeals and
eyewitness accounts, after having made a record
trip to the city to install the machinery necessary
for the broadcasts.
Statements from leaders in the work and eye-
witness accounts were broadcast from 8:00 to 9:00
p. m. Monday evening, and on Tuesday evening,
the station having been transferred to the South-
ern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co. building, the
statements and appeals continued. President
Roosevelt’s talk on Thursday evening from the
platform of the Southern Railway train was
broadcast through this station’s facilities, Mr.
Swicegood said.
The entire facilities of the station were dedi-
cated to the storm news and appeals the first two
Page 101
nights, and thereafter much time was devoted to
this work. The Red Cross funds were swelled by
contributions which were cleared through this
station, and much time was devoted to acknowl-
edging contributions from over the country by
WATL, which was then located in the Volunteer
Life building, headquarters of the Atlanta chapter
of the Red Cross, but whose station is now located
in the Henry Grady hotel.
Thus WATL added its voice, its influence, its
facilities gladly toward helping a stricken neigh-
bor, and this service has already been rewarded,
Mr. Swicegood said, in the response accorded and
in the knowledge of a duty well performed.
A CORRECTION
The photo title on page 75 should read "Gaines-
ville Mather Co.” instead of "Gainesville Motor
Newspapers Add to Fund
Contributions turned over by The Atlanta
Constitution for use in helping Gainesville storm
sufferers amounted to $1,622.6 5, aside from the
paper’s own donation. This paper also used many
columns appealing for aid and listing contribu-
tions as they came in during the first week after
the storm.
Besides its personal check for $100, employees
of The Atlanta Georgian made up a fund of $396;
the International News Service sent $12.75, and
Mr- Herbert Porter, publisher, gave his check for
$2 5. A large fund was cleared through this paper
which went to the Red Cross. This paper also gave
liberally of its space for appeals and listing con-
tributions many days after the tornado hit.
Graphic descriptions of the storm, with out-
standing illustrations, characterized the service
rendered Gainesville by these great dailies in the
time of need, as they depicted the suffering and
need prevalent and in that way aided in bringing
the relief so quickly assembled in the ravaged city.
WGST DOES ITS SHARE
Soon after word of Gainesville’s plight reached
the studios of WGST, broadcasting station of
Georgia School of Technology, that station’s offi-
cials had dispatched three cars containing engineers,
nurses, announcers and varied supplies, including
medical necessities, to the scene of the disaster.
It was the engineers of this station who first
completed the shortwave outfit that flashed details,
pleas and accounts, officials stated, establishing
further communication with the outside world.
Facilities of the station were turned over to
the purpose of assisting to inform the country of
the true scope of the tragedy, and in carrying out
pleas for succor. This generous gesture was fur-
ther amplified in continued broadcasts for many
days as the response was more spontaneous, and
thus WGST had a vital part in helping us and in
bringing help.
BAPTISTS RAISE FUND
A total of $2,012 had been raised Tuesday,
April 14, in response to the appeal the Sunday
previous to Baptists of Georgia to aid in rebuilding
the demolished auditorium and educational build-
ing of the First Baptst church at Gainesville, it
was announced by Dr. Louie D. Newton, one of
the four Atlanta ministers making the appeal.
HEN LIVES 31 DAYS
Charley Holland told on May 7 one of the
most amazing "believe it or not tales of the
tornado. At his residence, 50 S. Bradford, a hen,
part Game and remainder Black Giant, was placed
April 5 in a coop adjoining the R. D. Grigg build-
ing, to break her from setting. The tornado next
morning crumbled the Grigg building and covered
the coop with about four feet of brick and rub-
bish. Curt Stanford, foreman of a group of WPA
workers, cleared away the rubbish on May 7
and found that one third of the coop was intact
and in that portion was the hen—unharmed. Mr.
Holland stated that outside of a big thirst and a
bigger appetite, the hen is none the worse for her
31-day sojourn "down under.”
MANAGER’S WORK INTERRUPTED
City Manager Fred Roark, who took up his
duties January 1, 1936, and who is an active
member of Paul E. Bolding Post No. 7, American
Legion, was passing the court house in his car with
his wife when the storm lifted the greater portion
of the building into the air. Mr. Roark’s car was
showered with falling bricks and he sustained
wounds which kept him in bed several days. He
was soon on the job, however, managing the city’s
affairs in his usual efficient manner.
RADIO’S WONDERFUL AID
Being without radio service for four days fol-
lowing the storm, and also with little time for read-
ing newspapers, the author is not fully informed
as to services rendered by all stations not men-
tioned herein. However, each one who through
appeals and descriptions aided us, may know
Gainesville is sincerely and profoundly grateful,
even though each is not mentioned herein sepa-
rately.
Ed H. Bradley, Atlanta Journal reporter, who
worked all day and night at the scene of the storm,
came into the WPA relief headquarters at the
post office and spied a pair of shoes about three
sizes too large for him. "Can I have those?”
he asked. He could, and took them on with
obvious enjoyment. Later he donned a woman’s
flannelette gown in lieu of a dry shirt and rested
in apparent comfort. He had to be out in the
rain plowing through the muddy streets for more
than sixteen hours.
? Page 102
FALLING WALLS SMASH CARS
Elsewhere in this book is shown a picture of an
automobile covered with brick and debris, its body
almost flattened to the ground. This was a typical
scene in the business district the day of the storm,
and many people lost their lives when cars in which
they were seated at the time were destroyed.
Hundreds of cars in varying degrees of demolition
were seen on the city’s streets many days after-
wards. Enterprising auto repair men, more espe-
cially rebuilders of bodies, left cards on steering
wheels giving estimates on amounts needed to re-
pair the cars.
FIVE OF SIX CHURCHES STRUCK
Five of Gainesville’s six principal churches
were destroyed or badly damaged by the storm.
The St. Paul Methodist Church was utterly wiped
out, while Grace Episcopal Church was flattened
to the ground and much of it blown away. The
First Baptist Church roof was crushed in and the
building suffered other serious damage, the First
Methodist Church and Catholic Church were dam-
aged somewhat both on exterior and interior. Only
the Central Baptist Church escaped the fury of
the winds, in the city’s principal section.
? Page 10}
ESCAPES, HURT HELPING OTHERS
Charley Weiss escaped unhurt when the busi-
ness he operated, the Paul’s Clothing Co., in the
former State Bank building, was badly damaged.
He probably saved a lady clerk’s life when she at-
tempted to rush out into the storm, by dragging
her beneath a heavy counter. He then went out,
saw the destruction of his neighboring business
houses, Newman’s and Frierson-McEver Co., and
immediately plunged into the debris and began
helping get out the pinned-in clerks and customers.
Crawling between broken show-cases and crumb-
ling walls, he was working heroically when a
falling brick struck him and knocked him out.
He was in good shape, however, in a few days.
A big pumper from the Buckhead fire station
of Fulton county was sent to Gainesville Monday
afternoon in charge of H. A. Gilbert, captain;
C. E. Slate, driver, Charley Roach and Charley
Lay. On arriving it was placed* immediately into
service, being used seventeen hours without a stop.
County Commissioner Edwin Johnson sent the
truck.
'A' Page 104
Note car blown out of line behind tree-
-on public square.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
A MOST REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE
Lewis Porter, who for some time has been asso-
ciated with his father-in- law, Mr. G. E. O’Dell,
in the operation of a grocery business, had one of
the most remarkable experiences in the annals of
tornadoes. He' was at the corner of the public
square in front of the Gallant-Belk store when
the storm struck. He was picked up bodily by the
force of the wind and carried to a point near the
Confederate monument in the center, a distance
of about sixty yards, rammed against a curbstone,
and then carried back in a matter of seconds to the
point where he was originally picked up. There
he grasped the metal cover over a sewer, the while
the wind held his legs up in the air and whipped
them about in the gale like two flailing battling-
sticks. It was here his legs were punctured by in-
numerable pieces of flying debris. He was wrenched
loose finally from the position and dashed across
the street to a point in front of Pruitt-Barrett
Hardware Co., where he was covered by debris.
His back was wrenched, his side punctured by a
two-by-four scantling, and he was all but uncon-
scious when the wind subsided. He had enough
stamina left, however, to throw off the timbers
and bricks which held him down and start crawl-
ing to his store half a block away- It was while
crawling along that he pulled the scantling from
his side, and he then came near fainting, he said.
He was finally picked up by friends, later carried
to a hospital, and lay there several weeks before
being able to return to his home. It was more than
two months before he could get around on crutches
but all during that time he maintained the opti-
mism and cheerfulness which had always been a
characteristic.
Temporary barracks for the Red Cross head-
quarters were completed at the rear of Hosch Bros.
Co. on Maple street ten days after the storm, by
WPA workers, and headquarters were transferred
from the First Methodist Church. This place was
a scene of busy activity for months, carrying out
the many demands placed upon workers.
A check kept on automobiles passing a given
point, by the National Guard, showed that 1,500
cars an hour came in on the main highway from
Atlanta for six hours, on the Sunday following
the storm. It was conservatively estimated that
300,000 people visited Gainesville that day.
C. J. Wellborn, health commissioner for Hall
county, called upon The Atlanta Journal for pla-
cards warning Gainesville residents not to drink
water without boiling for fear of contamination.
The placards were printed and rushed to Gaines-
ville Monday night.
The Confederate Monument—emblem of an unconquered spirit
-Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
"A Spirit Whose Visible Form
Stands Unmoved and Immovable”
The following article, written by Tarleton
Collier in his column, "Behind the Headlines,”
and entitled "The Watch in the City Square,” ap-
pearing in the April 8th issue of The Atlanta
Georgian, is perhaps the best description of the
feeling of determination and true spirit of the
people of Gainesville after they recovered from
their stunned condition following the great dis-
aster which struck this beautiful "Queen City of
the Mountains” Monday morning, April 6.
"Everybody who has come back heart-sick and
sobered from Gainesville has remarked upon the
sturdiness of the Confederate soldier on marble
that stands there in the city park unmoved by the
storm, towering above the indescribable litter.
Looking at the pictures of that littered square
you find your eye going first to his commanding
figure. You recognize, if you never have done so
before, a certain quality of spirit which always
has been there but which appears now as a kind
of peak upon which sits strength and courage.
"In the square of every Southern town there
is a figure like his. It is not a monument to the
panoply of war, but to a spirit. It stands some-
times in the dust and rain of a treeless space, some-
times deep in the shade of old oaks and maples, as
a conception of man’s defiance for great odds, for
? Page 105

dangers, for death itself. On the pedestal below
the figure the graven not usually recite a dedica-
tion 'to the armies of the Confederacy’ but 'to the
valor of the Southern soldier.’
"It is an odd thing, but wherever this monu-
ment stands you may see a face upon the marble
soldier that is like all the others, a type. They
are all akin in calmness and strength, forever
young, even in those effigies in the smallest and
poorest towns whose sculpture is likely to be crude.
"You can’t escape the feeling that this is the
face of a man who once actually lived—a face that
looked upon Atlanta in ashes, carnage of the
crater or the wreckage of Vicksburg, upon all that
havoc which fell along the trail down from Chat-
tanooga to the sea.
"It is a face you can’t but feel that looked
forward in the final homecoming upon tangled
and ruined shelters, but that lost none of its calm
as the man set about to rebuild a destiny.
"It has looked upon nothing more terrible than
the sight of Gainesville today, but it has seemed
never so sturdy and indomitable as now. If that
statue in the city square had toppled, then Gaines-
ville indeed might have reason to despair.
"It seems to stand there as a concept of
strength and faith which had been long a dweller
in this place and which yet remains. It stands as a
kind of rallying spot, a center for councils which
may be held with assurance that an immemorial
strength will sustain them.
"There will be a new Gainesville, sturdier than
before, built by its own people. Some of those
people now are gone, some others will move away as
memory and heartaches drive. But most of them
will remain, and it is likely that there will be a
new Gainesville to which others will come in
tribute to the universal spirit of man’s valor and
asprations.
"It is this universal quality of the need and
the vision which makes the appeal of the occasion
also universal. The Red Cross funds to which
everybody is being asked to contribute offers an
opportunity for something more than passing re-
lief and salvage, however bitter are those needs.
"There is the opportunity also to have part in
supporting and vindicating a spirit whose visible
form stands unmoved and immovable there in the
heart of Gainesville’s city park.
"Of all people the people of the South who
set up that monument and many another like it,
and who once rebuilt their own region from the
wreckage of a cause which took everything, must
recognize that spirit.”
SUPPLIES ARE TRANSPORTED
Send food, clothing or other commodities to
the American Legion at 18/2 Auburn avenue, if
you can’t send it directly to Gainesville, Ga.
A car left this point every twenty minutes
Tuesday morning carrying among other things
3,500 pairs of sox, hundreds of overalls, 2,000
loaves of bread, milk and miscellaneous supplies,
including fifteen dozen candles.
Cecil R. Hall, department commander of the
D.A.V.’s, was in charge of a unit of fifteen work-
ers at Gainesville distributing food.
"Don’t bring us money,” A. L. Henson, post
service officer said. "Send the cash to the Red
Cross.”
"All Legion posts in Atlanta are cooperating,”
Mr. Henson said. The Jewish War Veterans also
have pooled resources with the Legion.
—Atlanta Journal, April 7.
Austin F. Dean, editor and proprietor of The
Gainesville Eagle, weekly newspaper, was coming
out of his office when the tornado struck. He
suffered only a cut from flying glass. The plant
was wrecked. His wife escaped from the Prince-
ton hotel without serious injury.
PROJECTS INCLUDED IN PLANS
SUBMITTED BY ENGINEERS
FOR MODERN CITY
1. Courthouse in center of block between
Spring and Broad street.
2. City Hall in center of block between East
Broad and East Church.
3. Public library in block south of hospital be-
tween East Broad and East Church.
4. Hospital in block where now located.
5. New colored school building in center of
Hunter and Fair street blocks.
6. Area now occupied by old Castleberry home
to make accessible new High School addition.
Build athletic stadium in rear of addition to school.
7. Build bus station where old City Hall
located.
8. Extend Academy street through to Oak
street.
9. Build market and parking grounds on
Academy street extension.
10. Build Gainesville Midland depot south of
West Broad street.
11. Widen Broad street from Maple to Spring
street intersection.
12. Widen and cut through Sycamore street
to Athens street.
13. Widen and cut through Maple street from
Church to Oak.
14. Cut Parker street through between Grove
and Main streets and widen.
15. Extend Church street from Race street to
Prior street.
16. Extend Center street from Prior to Boone
street.
MR. PALMOUR’S FINE WORK
When J. Ernest Palmour, Jr., was named
general chairman of committees coordinating all
efforts toward bringing Gainesville back to some
degree of her former status, a fine selection was
made. A young man of indomitable spirit and
plenty of energy, he went to work giving his
entire time and efforts to the big job, and the
hours proved not too long nor the work too ardu-
ous for him. Night and day he moved among
his friends—for they are all his friends—plan-
ning, working, directing, seeking advice, always
carrying on—and always maintaining his pleas-
ant demeanor.
Gainesville and this section owe a lasting debt
of gratitude to Ernest Palmour.
? Page 106
No work of this sort would be complete, of
course, without a tribute to the memory
of those who were so quickly called upon to va-
cate the earthly temple, and to those others who
succumbed after various periods of suffering to
injuries sustained in the storm.
We realize how futile are words to assuage the
grief and comfort the hearts of those who lost
loved ones, but cannot refrain from reproducing
in this department an outline of what transpired
at the joint memorial services held at the First
Methodist church on Monday, May 5, in which
pastors and other leaders participated.
Joint services honoring the colored dead were
also held at St. John Baptist church, colored, on
Sunday, May 10, with leading white and colored
citizens taking part.
The services at the First Methodist church
were attended by over 2,000 people, and loud
speakers were installed so that all on the outside
of the building might hear the exercises.
? Page 107
H. Bryce Ward and the pastors of the city
acted as a committee to complete arrangements,
and it was fitting the services be held there—the
scene of ministrations by the Red Cross and other
agencies to the wounded and dying, to the injured
and hungry, during the first trying weeks after
the storm. The building still bore many scars as
evidence of the power of that holocaust, though
it was located in the edge of its path.
Florists from Georgia and other Southern
states had sent beautiful floral offerings, and these
were banked around the pulpit, altar and other
sections of the building. Spectators filled the
auditorium, balcony and Sunday school rooms.
The bodies of two unidentified dead—those of
a boy and girl — symbolized all the storm vic-
tims, and hearses of five local undertakers were
used to transport these, together with floral offer-
ings, to the church. Provisions had been made
for seating relatives of victims in a special section.
The impressive services began with an organ
prelude, during which the caskets bearing the
Joint Memorial Services for Storm Victims
Scene at memorial services for storm dead held at First Methodist Church
May 5, with bodies of two unidentified banked by flowers.
—Photo Courtesy Atlanta Journal
bodies were wheeled in front of the altar, preceded
by the active pallbearers, sixteen boys from the
Gainesville High school; honorary pallbearers, city
and county commissioners, and Red Cross nurses,
then the local pastors.
Music was by the Gainesville Choral Choir,
under the direction of Bert Deuringer, with Mrs.
E. B. Michaelis as accompanist. Both are of the
faculty of Brenau College.
Rev. R. B. Russell, pastor, presided and read
the passage, "I am the resurrection and the life,”
then introduced the speakers. Passages were read
by Rev. J. F. Yarbrough, presiding elder of the
Gainesville district; Dr. K. O. White, pastor of
Central Baptist church; Rev. M. C. Dendy, pas-
tor First Presbyterian church.
Rev. Roland Q. Leavell, pastor of the First
Baptist church, and oldest pastor in point of
service in the city, preached the memorial sermon,
then Rev. H. C. Hinshelwood, pastor of Grace
Episcopal church, led in prayer. The choir sang
"Abide With Me,” and the congregation was dis-
missed by Rev. J. Bunyan Gresham, pastor of St.
Paul church.
Bodies of the two unidentified victims were
interred in a lot in Alta Vista cemetery donated
by the city for the purpose. All business activity
ceased during the services.
In his beautiful message Dr. Leavell said in
part:
"We are seeking to see clearly. We turn ever
to that mysterious word, 'Why?’ The hand of
God, the hand of Satan, of ourselves, of other
men, all shape our destiny. The two before us
are symbols of our tragedy. Yet every tear is a
prism through which the sunlight of God’s eternal
love is shining. Every dark corner of the sepul-
cher is illumined by the radiance of His love.
"We are led to see clearly two great truths of
Christian philosophy—that the hand of Satan is
ever hurtful, wrong, evil, the hand of God is ever
helpful, uplifting, compassionate, good. Every
good gift is as fresh as the dewdrop in the sun’s
rays. Sometimes out of sorrow, broken hearts,
comes light—matchless sacrifice, matchless dedi-
cation, music, poetry, literature, matchless lives.
We learn of the transitory qualities of material
things, the eternal qualities of God.
"With the upward look—the look of grati-
tude—we behold Him and see the love of God
planted in the hearts of men—we have their pray-
ers, their gifts, their ministrations. What a deso-
late world for us it would have been if it had not
been for the love planted in the hearts of our
fellow men!
"Out of the wreckage we turn to our beloved
dead and say: 'Gainesville will not forget. We
rededicate ourselves in tenderness and helpfulness
toward each other. You have not died in vain—
you live yet in our hearts, our lives, our love—
this has made us consecrate ourselves to greater,
better, higher things.’ ”
The courage and fortitude of Gainesville’s ne-
gro population in the face of their greatest catas-
trophe were praised by Presiding Elder John F.
Yarbrough, of the Gainesville district, at the me-
morial services held for colored dead, while he and
others spoke comforting words to those bereaved.
Stone J. Crane, assistant director of the Red
Cross, was the other principal white speaker at
these services, during which Professor W. H. Har-
per, for nineteen years principal of the colored
schools, acted as master of ceremonies. Colored
pastors assisted Professor Harper in completing all
arrangements.
Choirs of the city formed into a chorus, which
rendered negro spirituals in soul-stirring manner,
as well as other sacred hymns. Loud-speakers were
installed so that those outside might hear the
services.
Negro speakers included Rev. J. H. Brandon,
Rev. W. D. Norfleet, Rev. M. J. Jackson, Profes-
sor E. J. Thompson and George Stephens. More
than 1,000 people gathered to pay a last tribute to
the twenty negro dead.
Gainesville and the South lost some of their
most prominent, useful and beloved citizens when
this roaring, slashing demon of the air laid waste
a beautiful mountain city. Their deeds will be
remembered, their memory cherished, the examples
of their lives will be revered as a rich heritage.
The author finds it impossible to secure pic-
tures of all who were killed in the storm, since so
many homes with their records and keepsakes were
utterly destroyed. However, we have secured as
many as possible, which are gladly presented in
this section as a lasting record. Equal recognition
is given those whose pictures it was impossible to
procure, by setting aside a like space as the pho-
tograph and inserting therein the name of the de-
ceased. Loved ones and friends, when they see
these reserved spaces, may visualize in their mind’s
eye the features of him or her there represented.
? Page 108

MRS. W. M. BAILES, SR.
? Page 110
MR. AND MRS. FRED L. GRIGG
Left to right: CECIL CHESTER, DINWIDDY, NORA ANN AND MALUM GRIGG
PANSY ESTELLE KANADY
JOHN EGBERT OWENS
GUY BARRETT
CLYDE CARTER
OSLER DOYLE BOWMAN
E. H. PERRY
MRS. W. M. BAILES, JR.
MRS. LAURA ANNA GAILEY
DR. ROBERT DINWIDDIE GRIGG
EMMETT JULIAN LILLY
MRS. HATTIE STRICKLAND
JOHN STEWART ROGERS
RUFUS McMAHAN
MRS. GEORGE SPAIN

DOROTHY REE FLEMING

MISS KATHLEEN GAINES
HERBERT FRANKLIN COCHRAN
NORRIS THEODORE SHERIDAN
MRS. GARLAND ANDERSON
? Page 111
FRANK WILLIAM BENSON
SPENCER MORGAN MEANS
GLADYS OPAL BARKER
i: ^ -m* «
t p »
HAYWOOD PETHEL
MRS. H. LEON GAINES
JOHN HENRY RICHARDSON, JR.
MRS. MOLLIE KIMBRELL
CANDLER MARTIN
FRANCES E. ANDERSON
JESSE C. EADES
REV. JESSE M. SHEFFIELD
JOHN KIMBRELL
MARK ANTHONY BOLDING
EDWARD ANDERSON
STORM
MRS. ERNEST G. WATSON
MRS. CLAUDE FOUTES
MRS. RICHARD R. McMAHAN
MRS. GLENN G. STOWE
VICTIMS OF
DAVID GOWER JARRETT
MRS. RALPH EVANS
/%
8 o
1 V
^ Jr
MRS. JOE BRYANT
THE
ERNEST SEWELL HANCOCK, JR.
MISS WINNIE BRYANT
SIDNEY GLOVER
ROY MARTIN
FRANK COYLE
CHARLES SCHUBERT
MRS. BIRDIE MAE KEMP
TALMADGE DeWITT STEVENS
? Page 112
VICTIMS OF THE STORM
JAMES BARNES PALMOUR
MARY ADDIE THOMAS
MISS TOMMIE PORTER
ROBERT ADAMS
OLOMON W. APPERSO
EMMA AUSTIN
DEAN DeLONG
CLAUDE BROWN
JOHN BURNETT
OLA BARRETT
BURNETT
RICHARD ELLIS
BOWLES
MRS. FLORA BURTZ
FLORA HELEN BURTZ
DEWEY C. CAGLE
? Page 11}
vr*r*
VICTIMS OF THE STORM
MRS. ANNIE
MAE CAIN
DWANE DOWDY
MRS. OMIE KANADY
GILSTRAP
MRS. BELL HART
BIRDIE HART
VIRLIN HART
MRS. JAMIE
HENDERSON
JOHN JACOB HUESSEY
MRS. J. J. HUESSEY
MRS. HATTIE MAE
DeLONG
CLARENCE OSGOOD
ELLIS
MISS IDELL GILLESPIE
MRS. J. HARRINGTON
DOLORES HUESSEY
? Page 114
VICTIMS
OF THE
STORM
MRS. GERTRUDE J.
JACKSON
HARVEY PINKERTON
KERVEY
MRS. BECKY
PATTERSON
MRS. LILLY ONIE
ROBINSON
SAMUEL McCRARY
MRS. JESSIE L.
PHILLIPS
ARTHUR ERNEST
PORTER
MISS OLIE PRATER
MRS. LILLY
RICHARDSON
GRACE TATE
MRS. SHILOH SMITH

BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING
OPERATIONS SINCE GAINESVILLE STORM
(Below is listed a large portion of those who remained in business, resumed
operations or (*)will resume as soon as possible.—The Author.)
ADDERHOLT DAIRY_________________________________Brown’s Bridge Road
Butter, Cream and Milk
AMERICAN OIL CO______________________________________Athens Street
Gas, Oil, Greasing, Washing
AMERICAN RAILWAY EXPRESS____________ ______Gainesville Midland Depot
Express Service
AMERICAN SERVICE STATION__________________________South Main Street
Amoco Gas, Oils, Greases, Washing, Polishing
* BERRY BAGWELL _ ______________________ .Corner Athens and Church
Blacksmithing, Wagon Bodies, Trucks
BARRON’S CAFE_____________________________________South Main Street
Lunches, Sandwiches, Drinks
BARRON’S SHOE SHOP___________________________North Bradford Street
Shoe Repairs, New and Old Shoes for Sale
BAY WAY STEAM LAUNDRY.. ________________________________West Broad
Laundry and Dry Cleaning
BEE HIVE MARKET_______________________________North Bradford Street
Meats and Grogeries
BELLMORE MANUFACTURING CO-------------------------- Gordon Avenue
Overalls and Jackets
£LUE RIDGE PARK NURSERIES, INC----------------------Cleveland Road
Ornamental Shrubbery, Flowers
BROCK’S SERVICE STATION________________________ .... East Spring Street
Gas, Oil, Tires, Batteries, Washing, Lubrication
BRASSFIELD SHEET METAL WORKS_________________________ ... Oak Street
Metal Works Contractors
THE BOOK SHOP___________________________________West Washington Street
Books, Magazines, Gifts
E. H. BRASELTON’S SERVICE STATION________________________Atlanta Road
Gas, Oils, Washing, Polishing
H. D. BRICE__________________________________________West Spring Street
Auto Parts
JOE R. BRICE_________________________________________West Broad Street
Cabinet Work, Store Fronts, Plate Glass, Auto Glass
BROAD STREET SHELL STATION... ___________ ____ _______West Broad Street
Shell Products, Washing, Lubrication
BROWN BROS- CO______________________________ ____ .North Main Street
Drugs, Patent Medicines, Paints
BUICK-DeLONG AGENCY_________ _____ _________ - South Main Street
Buick, Pontiac, Sales and Service
? Page 117
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
CARLISLE-ADAMS INSURANCE AGENCY--------------------Jackson Building
Insurance, Bonds
CARTER GROCERY CO--------------------------------------Maple Street
Wholesale Groceries, Building Material
J D CARTER ___ _____ _____ West Washington Street
Broker
CHAMBERS LUMBER CO------ ----------------------South Main Street
Lumber, Building Materials, Paint
CINCIOLO’S CAFE________________________ ..South Main Street
Lunches, Regular Meals, Sodas, Candies
CITY ICE CO - ______________________________South Main Street
Coal and Ice, Refrigerators
CITY PLUMBING & HEATING CO----------------------North Bradford Street
Heating and Plumbing Contractors
JAMES T. CLARK INSURANCE AGENCY--------------------Jackson Building
Insurance, Bonds
THE COFFEE POT........ .. - ____________________West Spring Street
Lunches, Sandwiches, Drinks
C. J. CONNER _______________________________________South Bradford Street
Meats and Groceries, Feedstuffs
THE CRESCENT CO____________________________ West Spring Street
Manufacturers of Ice Cream—Wholesale Only
*LEE CROWE’S RECREATIONAL PARLORS_________________South Main Street
Billiards, Bowling, Sandwiches, Drinks
L. S. DANIEL’S STORE____________________________White Sulphur Road
Groceries and Feedstuffs
DANIEL’S CASH GROCERY____________________________South Bradford Street
Groceries and Feedstuffs
DARNELL’S DRESS SHOP__________________________West Washington Street
Ladies’ Ready-to-Wear, Millinery
DAVIS-WASHINGTON CO---------------------------South Maple Street
Builders’ Supplies
DeWITT INSURANCE AGENCY______________________West Washington Street
Insurance
R. M. DILLARD ________________________________________Jackson Building
Certified Public Accountant
* DIXIE HUNT HOTEL____________________________Maple, Main and Spring Streets
DIXIE SERVICE STATOIN ___________ ... -- ______ -- East Spring Street
Gas, Oils, Wasfung, Lubrication
DODGE BROS. AUTOMOBILE AGENCY .. _____ - East Spring Street
Dodge, Plymouth—Sales and Service
DOVER’S SERVICE STATION ... ____ .. ... - West Broad Street
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
DOWNEY HOSPITAL___________________________South Sycamore Street
DUNLOP TIRE & RUBBER CO____________________South Main Street
Dunlop Tires and Tubes
? Page US
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
DOOLEY’S CAFE____________________________________South Bradford Street
Lunches, Sandwiches, Drinks, Smokes
ELDER’S SERVICE STATION .___ ___ _____ - West Broad Street
Lunches, Groceries, Gas, Oils
GEORGE P. ESTES CO.________ ___________________West Washington Street
Dry Goods, Shoes, Ready-to-Wear, Millinery
S. L. FARGASON______ Brenau Avenue
Gainesville Agent, The Atlanta Journal
FARMERS HARDWARE CO. __ South Bradford Street
Hardware, Farm Implements
*D V. FAULKNER_____________________________________Oak Street
Wholesale Grocer
FEDERAL SERVICE STATION ______ ----- --------- -East Spring Street
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
FIRST NATIONAL BANK _ - - South Main Strut
R. Banks, "President
FLOUR & FEED STORE____________________________South Bradford Street
Groceries and Feed Stuffs
FORD AUTOMOBILE AGENCY ______ ___ _ South Main Street
Lincoln, Ford Sales & Service
FRIERSON-McEVER CO-------- ---- - - - --- - South Main Street
Clothing and Shoes, Ladies’ Ready-to-Wear
FULLER’S SERVICE STATION_______ _________________South Green Street
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
GAINESVILLE BAGGAGE & CAB CO-------------------- West Broad Street
Taxicabs, Transfer Service
GAINESVILLE BROOM WORKS____________________________ Maple Street
Manufacturers of Brooms, Whist Brooms
GAINESVILLE CHEVROLET CO------------------------- South Main Street
Chevrolet Sales and Service
GAINESVILLE COTTON MILLS_________________________Southern Railroad
Textile Manufacturers
GAINESVILLE COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO. _____________ North Green Street
Coca-Cola, Soft Drinks
GAINESVILLE CREDIT EXCHANGE_______________________ Jackson Building
Reports, City Directory
GAINESVILLE EAGLE __ _____ - - ------ North Main Street
Established 1860—Commercial Job Printing
GAINESVILLE FLOWER SHOP ________________________North Green Street
Cut Flowers, Potted Plants
GAINESVILLE HEATING & PLUMBING CO---------- Maple Street
Heating and Plumbing Contractors
GAINESVILLE HIDE & METAL CO--------------------------- Grove Street
Junk, Hides, Metal
GAINESVILLE IRON WORKS _ _______ South Main Street
Cane Mills, Shingle Mills, Castings
? Page 119
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
GAINESVILLE MARBLE & GRANITE CO----------- West Broad Street
Monuments and Statuary
GAINESVILLE MATHER CO-----------------------------West Spring Street
Furniture, Radios, Refrigerators
GAINESVILLE MATTRESS FACTORY-------------------------Myrtle Street
New Mattresses—Mattresses Made New
GAINESVILLE MIDLAND RAILWAY_______________________West Spring Street
Freight and Passenger Service
GAINESVILLE NATIONAL BANK - ... South Bradford Street
A. E. Roper, President
GAINESVILLE NEWS________________________________ South Main Street
Established 1888—Commercial Job Printing
GAINESVILLE OIL CO------------------------------------Grove Street
Purol, Woco-Pep, Tiolene Oils
GAINESVILLE STEAM LAUNDRY_________________________South Main Street
Laundry and Dry Cleaning
GAINESVILLE WHOLESALE CO------------------------------Maple Street
Wholesale Groceries
GALLANT-BELK CO_________________________________West Spring Street
Dry Goods, Clothing, Ready-to-Wear, Millinery
GEORGIA CHAIR CO-------------------------------------Railroad Avenue
Furniture Manufacturers
- GEORGIA FARMERS’ FIRE INSURANCE CO------------South Main Street
GEORGIA GAS CO_____________________________East Washington Street
Bituminous Gas
GEORGIA POWER CO. ..... _________________________South Main Street
Electric Power, Electrical Appliances
CHARLES L. GOFORTH_________________1------------East Spring Street
Electrical Contracting and Supplies
GOFORTH HARDWARE CO. .__________________South Bradford Street
Shelf and Heavy Hardware, Dairy Supplies
GOODYEAR TIRE AGENCY________________________East Spring Street
Goodyear Tires and Tubes
G. D. GOWDER__________________________________________E>avis Street
Groceries, Meats, Feedstuffs
GROWERS CURB MARKET _______________________________North Bradford Street
Fruits, Vegetables, Meats, Poultry
GULF REFINING CO_______________________________Office, Moreno Street
I. A. Berry, Agent
HALL COUNTY MOTOR CO___________________________South Bradford Street
Oldsmobile—Used Cars
FRANK HAMILTON _________________________________South Main Street
Expert Barber Service
C. R. HAMMOND_________________________________East Washington Street
Diamonds, Watches, Clocks, Silverware
I. T. HARRIS
.West Broad Street
Gas, Oil, Groceries
? Page 120
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
HENDRIX MONUMENT CO._____________________Railroad Avenue
Monuments and Statuary
HENRY’S CASH STORE________________________________________West Avenue
Meats, Groceries, Feedstuffs
HOSCH BROS. CO______________________________West Washington Street
Wholesale Dry Goods and Millinery
W. R. HUGHES
Jeweler-Optometrist
HULSEY’S______________________________________South Bradford Street
Ready-to-Wear, Clothing, Millinery
IMPERIAL PHARMACY- ______________________ ___West Washington Street
Drugs, Toilet Articles
INDEPENDENT GASOLINE CO--------------------------- East Spring Street
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
J. E. JACKSON, FLORIST___ __________________ West Washington Street
Cut Flowers, Potted Plants
JACOBS MOTOR CO_____________________________________West Spring Street
Studebaker, LaSalle Sales and Service
JEWELL-LOUDERMILR WAREHOUSE CO-------------------- -Church Street
Cotton Stored, Poultry Bought and Sold
PAUL JONES___________________________________East Washington Street
Sandwiches, Drinks
KELLEY-SPRINGFIELD TIRE AGENCY____________________South Main Street
Tires, Tubes, Accessories
F. G. KIMSEY STORE_________________________________________ Pine Street
Groceries, Feedstuffs, Meats
K. & K. MARKET_______________________ __________South Main Street
Groceries and Fruits
*TI IE LITTLE DRESS SHOP__________________________South Main Street
Ladies’ Ready-to-Wear
MANGUM & BROGDON BARBER SHOP- _________ -West Spring Street
Expert Barber Service
M SYSTEM STORE, CARTER BROS. - ---- North Bradford Street
Meats and Groceries
C. H. MARTIN & SON... ______________________North Main Street
Coal and Wood
MARY LOU CAFE_________________________________East Washington Street
Regular Meals, Lunches, Drinks
GAINESVILLE MATHER CO----------------------------West Spring Street
Good and Bad Furniture
J. D. MATTHEWS________________________________ South Main Street
Auto Supplies, Hardware, Electrical Goods
? Page 121
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
MAUNEY’S CASH GROCERY
South Maple Street
Wholesale Groceries
mark McConnell
Ford Sales and Service
South Main Street
MRS. OLLIE McCONNELL_______ East Washington Street
Ladies’ Ready-to-Wear
MERRITT’S SERVICE STATION------------------------------Riverside Drive
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication__________________
METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE CO----------------- Jackson Building
Insurance
W. II. MINOR. MARKE T --------------------- North Bradford Street
Meats and Groceries____________________________
_____South Main Street
BYRON MITCHELL —
Meats, Fish, Oysters
MODERN BEAUTY SHOPPE
Jackson Building
Beauty Culture
B. H. MOORE FURNITURE CO---------------------- North Bradford Street
Home Furnishings
_______South Maple Street
FLUNK MOORE---
Automobile Repairs
GEORGE W. MOORE & SON--------------------------------- Railroad Avenue
Coal and Wood
MORRISON CABS
East Spring Street
Taxicab Service
MOTOR FINANCE CO.
Jackson Building
Financing and Loans
THE MOTOR INN
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
West Spring Street
MUNDY TAXI SERVICE
Taxicabs and Hauling
West Broad Street
RALPH MURPHY_
North Bradford Street
Meats and Groceries
C. V. NALLEY—
East Spring Street
Dodge and Plymouth Sales and Service
NANCE TRANSFER CO-------------------------------West Broad Street
Local and Long Distance Hauling
NEI U BOTTLING CO. ------------West Broad Street
Soft Drinks
North Green Street
NEWMAN’S, INC.
Dry Goods, Clothing and Ready-to-Wear
NEWTON & WARD CO. _______________ ____________West Washington Street
Funeral Directors
NIVENS SHOE SHOP - --------- --- ------------ East Spring Street
Shoe Repairs
NORTH GEORGIA COFFEE CO. .. _____________________ South Bradford Street
Fresfi Roasted Coffees
? Page 122
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
Typical scene on May 6, firms opening while rebuilding goes on.
—Photo by the Author
NORTHERN FREIGHT LINES____ _ ------- South Main Street
Local and Long Distance Hauung
NUNN’S GARAGE______________________________________ South Bradford Street
Auto Repairs
W. L. NORTON AGENCY
Jackson Building
Insurance
G. E. O’DELL
West Broad Street
Groceries and Feedstuffs
OWEN OSBORNE, INC.
East Spring Street
Hosiery Manufacturers
PACOLET MANUFACTURING CO.
Textile Manufacturers
New Holland
PALMOUR HARDWARE CO____________ - ______ East Washington Street
Hardware, Farm Implements
PARKER’S SHOE SHOP
Shoe Repair, New and Old Shoes
Church Street
B. A. PARKS & SONS - _ ____ North Bradford Street
Groceries, Feedstuffs, Dry Goods
::'PARKS CAFE
South Bradford Street
Meals, Lunches, Drinks
-'PARKS FEED STORE
West Broad Street
Purina Feeds, Grinding
J. M. PARKS & SONS - - ________ South Bradford Street
Dry Goods, Clothing, Ready-to-Wear
PARKS LUMBER CO.
Grove Street
Lumber, Building Materials
W. M. PATTERSON ______ _________________________ East Spring Street
Lunches, Sandwiches, Drinks
? Page 123
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
PAUL’S CLOTHING CO. _____________________________South Main Street
Clothing, Hats, Furnishings
PAUL’S DRY CLEANERS____________________________Ea*t Washington Street
Dry Cleaning
__________South Main Street
J. C. PENNEY CO.
Clothing, Ready-to-Wear, Dry Goods
PEOPLES’ WHOLESALE GROCERY CO----------- North Bradford Street
Wholesale Groceries and Fruits
PERFECT SERVICE STATION_________-________________North Green Street
Purol, Woco-Pep, Tiolene, One-Stop Service
______South Bradford 9Sreet
*D. T. PETHEL-
Billiards, Drinks, Smokes
PIEDMONT CORPORATION______________________Jackson Building
PIEDMONT DRUG CO_____________________________South Bradford Street
Drugs and Sundries
PIERCE CO______-__________________________________West Broad Street
Plumbing and Heating
PIGGLY-WIGGLY MARKET________________________North Bradford Street
Meats, Fish, Oysters
PILGRIM-ESTES FURNITURE CO----------------------North Bradford Street
Complete Home Furnishers
PIRKLE’S CAFE_________________________________________South Main Street
Lunches, Sandwiches, Drinks
POSTAL TELEGRAPH CABLE CO. ___________________South Main Street
COMMERLIAL CABLES
J P "PAT” PRATER_________________-__________________West Spring Street
Paints and Builders’ Supplies
H. J. PRESTON.
Kouth Main Street
Battery Hospital
PRINCETON HOTEL___________________________North Main Street
*PRUITT-BARRETT HARDWARE CO----------------South Bradford Street
Wholesale and Retail Hardware
QUEEN CITY BEAUTY SHOPPE________________________________Jackson Building
Beauty Culture
RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY__________________________Gainesville Midland Railway
Express Service
RAY’S TOURIST CAMP___________________________________Atlanta Road
Tourist Cabins, Lunches, Drinks
RED GROCERY___________1_________________________South Main Street
Staple and Fancy Groceries
RHODES-WOOD FURNITURE CO------------------West Washington Street
Home Furnishings
::'RITZ THEATRE__________________________-___-____________South Main Street
Modern Photoplays
RIVERSIDE CAFE________________________________________West Spring Street
Meals, Lunches, Drinks
? Page 124
SffiBawlW
-..j'-ti*. k-Jvu&J
Cars fill public square while rebuilding goes forward, trade booms.
-Photo by the Author
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
ROYAL THEATRE______________________________________South Main Street
Modern Photoplays
JAKE SACKS_____________________________—_______South Bradford Street
Clothing, Ready-to-Wear, Dry Goods
C. F. SAINE__________________________________________Jackson Building
Lumber
L. R. SAMS CO____________________________________ South Maple Street
Storage Warehouse
SINCLAIR OIL CO---------------------------------------Moreno Street
A. E. Roper, Agent
SINGER SEWING MACHINE CO------------------------North Bradford Street
Singer Machines
SINGLETON & CO__________________________________ -North Main Street
Produce
W. H. SLACK, JR___________________________________ South Main Street
Auto Parts and Supplies
SMITH BROS_________________________________________South Main Street
Meals, Lunches, Sodas, Candies
S. O. SMITH____________-________________________North Bradford Street
Insurance
SMITH & PIERCE BARBER SHOP_____________________East Washington Street
Expert Barber Service
GUY STANCIL________________________________________North Main Street
Body, Fender and Engine Repair
STANDARD OIL CO. ...._______ — ---- ------- Moreno Street
E. F. Hughs, Agent
? Page 125
BUSINESS PEOPLE RESUMING OPERATIONS
HAMP STANCIL__________________________________________Maple Street
Plumbing and Heating Contractor
STAR Tab CO ___________________South Bradford Street
Cab Service___________________________
^ __-- ________________East Spring Street
Funeral Director, Ambulance Service _____
STRINGER BROS________________________ ______East Washington Street
Confectioneries, Drinks ______________
SWIFT & CO ________________-_____ South Maple Street
Packers
H. A. TERRELL & SON_____________________________South Maple Street
Wholesale Groceries, Roofing
THE TEXAS CO_________________________________________Athens Street
T. Q. Jones, Agent
UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER AGENCY------------------------------Boulevard
New and Used Machines, Repair Service ____________
VAUGHAN MUSIC CO---------------------------------North Main Street
Pianos, Radios, Musical Instruments
J. B. VICKERS & SON___________________________________Atlanta Road
Funeral Directors, Ambulance Service__
WALKER & LINDERMAN SERVICE STATION----------------West Spring Street
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication ______________
WALLACE TIN SHOP -_______________________________North Main Street
Sheet Metal Work
WALLIS SERVICE STATION-------------------------------Atlanta Road
Gas, Oils, Washing, Lubrication
WALTON JACKSON CO--------- ------------------------Railroad Avenue
Lumber and Building Materials
W. H. WATERMAN_______________________________North Bradford Street
Merchant Tailor, Dry Cleaning
WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO-------------------West Washington Street
Commebcial Cables
WHATLEY’S PHARMACY--------------------------------West Spring Street
Drugs, Sundries, Prescriptions
WHEELER HOTEL____________________________________North Main Street
WI IITAKER & GARRETT__________________________South Bradford Street
Wholesale Candies and Sundries
LEWIS WHITEHEAD__________________________________South Main Street
Battery, Ignition, Starter Service
WHITFIELD’S______________________________________West Spring Street
Ladies’ Ready-to-Wear
WHITMIRE’S GARAGE________________________________________°AK Street
General Repair Service
WOFFORD OIL CO-----------------------------------------Grove Street
Horace Hawkins, Agent
WRIGHT’S ICE CREAM CO. ___________________________South Main Street
Ice Cream Manufacturers
? Page 126
INDEX
Page
In Appreciation ------------------------------- -------------------------------- 6
Valuable Information About Tornadoes—By George W. Mindling 7
Telling of the Tragedy—Asking for Help--------------------
Death and Destruction------------------------------------------------------------ 15
Helping Hands in Time of Need--------------------------------------------------- 17
How Gainesville Reacted to the Staggering Blow-------- ------------------------- 21
Ed Dodd Contributes to Book-------------------------------------- -------------- 23
President Roosevelt Speaks----------------—------------------------------------- 24
Rising from Ruins and Ashes ---------------------------------------------------- 2 5
Some Freaks of the Storm-------------------------------------------------------- 3 3
Personal Experiences in the Storm----------------------------------------------- 39
Boy Scouts on the Job—As Always------------------------------------------------- 45
Interesting Sidelights on Tornado------------------------------------------------ 47
Humorous Incidents Are Included----------------------------------------------- 49
The Atlanta Journal’s Superb Work------------------------------------------------ 50
How the Big Story Was Handled--------------------------------------------------- 5 3
The Army at Gainesville—By Gen. George Van Horne Moseley---------1.------------- 5 5
Work Done by WPA Is Outlined—By Miss Gay B. Sbepperson-------------------------- 59
NEC Head Deems Expenditures Wise—By Erie Cocke---------------------------------- 61
Lieut. Col. Somervell Tells of Work--------------------------------------------- 62
President of Brenau College Makes Statement—By Dr. H. J. Pearce----------------- 63
Statement from President Sandy Beaver of Riverside------------------------------ 65
Air View Five Days Before Storm------------------------------------------------- 66
Air View Five Hours After Storm------------------------------------------------- 67
Gainesville, "The Queen City’---------------------------------------------------- 68
Seeing Devastation from the Air—By Pilot Lee Willey----------------------------- 69
Congressman Whelchel Foresees Greater City--------------------—----------------- 71
Vital Statistics of the Storm--------------------------------------------------- 73
Marvelous Response to Appeal for Help—By Moreton M. Kolleston------------------- 74
Brilliant Record Made—By Henry M. Baker----------------------------------------- 76
Need Continues Great------------------------------------------------------------- 77
"Give For Stricken Gainesville”-------------------------------------------------- 78
Red Cross Is Careful Trustee of Funds—By Ann H. Miller-------------------------- 79
Hunt Praises Brewer-------------------------------------------------------------- 80
Poem by Polly Cunningham Mealor------------------------------------------------- 81
Legionnaires and Auxiliary Do Their Share------------------------------------
Easter Services Are Held-------------------------------------------------------- 8^
Gainesville Says, "We Thank You”-,---------------------------------------------- 86
Letters and Messages About the Tornado------------------------------------------ 87
Editorial, "The Queen City”—.--------------------------------------------------- 90
Editorial, "Thanks Are So Little”------------------------------------------------ 92
A Tryst With Nature-------------------------------------------------------------- 9^
The National Guard at Gainesville—By Col. T. L. Alexander----------------------- 94
Path of the Tornado—By J. S. Pope-----------------------------------------------100
WATL Is First on the Air--------------------------------------------------------10*
WGST Does Its Share--------------------------------------------------------------102
Falling Walls Smash Cars--------------------------------------------------------
A Most Remarkable Experience-----------------------------------------------------104
Spirit of the Confederacy—By Tarleton Collier-----------------------------------105
Joint Memorial Services for Storm Victims---------------------------------------107
Victims of the Storm-------------------------------------------------------------1°9
Business People Resuming Operations--------------------------------------------- 117
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