Omaha's Easter Tornado of 1913

Book excerpt: On Sunday, March 23, 1913, the burgeoning city of Omaha, Nebraska, fell victim to one of the worst tornado disasters in American history. Downtown was spared, but the fashionable neighborhoods of the city's western fringe and the ethnic neighborhoods of north Omaha were destroyed. Over 100 lives were lost, and millions of dollars in property damage was done. Photographers descended upon Omaha, rendering astonishing images of the storm's aftermath. This book uses nearly 200 of those photographs, many of which are drawn from the Durham Western Heritage Museum archives, to document the tornado's path of destruction, as well as stories of survival, compassion, reconstruction, and the remarkable unity and resilience of the Omaha community.