The scars of the May 23, 2019 tornado that hit Jefferson City remain fresh—and obvious to many who remember when a house stood here, a big beautiful tree over there, when a fence conceals a vacant lot that once held a gathering place for plays, when broken windows at the state penitentiary continue to stare blankly at passersby.

When city and county officials had time to add things up, they found it had damaged 316 residential buildings, 82 commercial buildings and thirty government structures. It was classed as an EF-3, with winds of 73-112 mph (the scale assigns storms of less than 73 mph as an EF0).

Within hours of that tornado, and continuing today, there are those who speculate about what would have happened if the tornado had followed a path just a few blocks west—-and hit a hospital or the Southside and downtown business district and even the Capitol.

We had a tornado that did.  Hit the Capitol.  And a hospital.  And areas in between.

It was May 12, 1890, a Monday in the town of about 6,700 residents. “The almost stifling heat during the afternoon indicated that a storm of some kind was brewing and the heavy cloud that rolled up in the southwest about 4:30 indicated further that it was a storm of the business turn of mind, and that it had business in this immediate vicinity” reported the Jefferson City Daily Tribune the next day.  “It came with a roar and a crash that was terrible enough to fill the minds of those who witnessed it with apprehension of dire disaster.”

The Cole County Democrat reported, “The winds rose in a stiff blow, carrying the dark green looking clouds in every direction and threatening destruction to everything.”

And then the cloud split into three segments, “one division striking for the extreme western portion of the city, another traveling up Monroe Street to the river, while the third division took in the southern and eastern portion of the city taking in the penitentiary.”

The Chillicothe Constitution reported, “For half an hour the wind blew a hurricane, driving before it a storm of rain which so enveloped the town that nothing could be seen but the vivid flashes of lightning…At 4:45 o’clock the wind had risen almost to the force of a cyclone, and as it came roaring over the hills it struck the state Capitol with terrific force.

The seven-year old St. Peter Catholic Church was hammered and, “The heavy brick arch on top of the rear wall was blown over on the roof and went crashing through clear to the basement, making a complete wreck of the richly furnished altar and sacristy.”  Fortunately, said the Daily Tribune, “it is understood that a cyclone policy was carried on the church.”

The Capitol was immediately next. “Here the wind got a grip under the cornice of the roof of the old part of the building north of the dome and did not relax its hold until a great section of the roof, tin, timbers and all, had been rolled up, crushed, splintered and scattered…,” said the newspaper.  The Chillicothe paper said the debris was “rolled together like a scroll and carried over the bluff.”

The tornado struck only a few months after a new cornerstone had been laid after two new wings had been added to the Capitol.

“At the same moment, half a dozen trees in the Capitol Park were snapped in twain, and the glass in the dome came tumbling with a crash into the rotunda.”  But, “the building itself stood solid as a rock.”

The eastern division of the storm unroofed the penitentiary hospital but apparently did little damage beyond that.

But the central division, the storm “tore down several chimneys, one off he residence of Postmaster Sample, one off the resident of J. R. Edwards, the smoke stack from the Brton residence and J. T. Craven lost his tin chimney. The shade trees in Mr. R. Dallmeyer’s yard were twisted considerably.  The Democrat building lost a cellar door, it being lifted by the storm from the pavement and carried at least one hundred feet. One window of the building being completely destroyed, the venetian blind being blown clear away with only a small fragment left. The resident of Mr. W. M. Meyer on Adams Street has the bale end blown in, doing some damage to his furniture but fortunately injuring no one.”

The young ladies’ dormitory at Lincoln Institute lost its roof and the heavy rain damaged the interior plastering.

The Daily Tribune cataloged other damage:

“A porch in the rear of the building on High street occupied by Mrs. Robinson and Mr. Schleer was lifted over onto the roof and a big chimney, adding further destruction by tumbling over and making another big hole.  The west wall of the house on McCarty Street, occupied by Mr. W. W. Meyers, was blown in. The children had been playing in this room a few moments before the storm came, but were fortunately in another part of the building when the wall went in with a deafening crash. The cornice on the rear of the Music hall building was damaged. Mrs. Vogt’s residence on Washington street, was unroofed. The Standard Shoe Co.’s building, on Main Street, was dismantled of chimneys, and buildings in all parts of the city had similar experiences.

“The roof of the Neef house was badly wrenched and some of the rooms damaged by water.  At the Central hotel a smokestack on Maj. Lusk’s residence was blown through a window, carrying away the entire sash, and before the aperture could be protected a number of rooms were flooded, doing much damage to furniture and carpets. Shade and fruit trees, shrubbery and fences suffered at Mr. H.W. Ewing’s place, near the city. His stable was also minus the roof when the storm cleared away..”

No casualties were reported.

“Our people were considerably frightened, and well they may be, as no such clouds have ever before been seen in this city.  We are congratulating ourselves that it is no worse, and hope that such an occurrence will not visit us again,” said the Cole County Democrat.

While residents of Jefferson City were pondering the disaster, some people sixty miles away were showing no sympathy.  The booming and ambitious city of Sedalia, with more than 14,000 people, had been trying to wrestle the seat of government away from Jefferson City for more than a decade.  The Sedalia Bazoo commented, “Since the Lord partially ruined the state capitol building at Jefferson City, it is a good time to agitate the removal of the capital to Sedalia.”  The Sedalia Gazette noted, “The roof of part of Missouri’s capitol was blown off this week. This is the same building upon which was squandered a quarter of a million dollars recently” (with the addition of two wings on the north and sound ends of the 1840 Capitol).

Five years later, Sedalia interests stormed Jefferson City with a one-day lobbying blitz that led the legislature to put a proposition on the 1896 ballot to pull state government out of Jefferson City.

But that’s another story.