August 22, 2006
The IC reached this town in 1853, along with the Terra Haute & Alton Railroad. The IC remains to this day. The town was hit by a famous tornado that occured May 26, 1917. The town is best known for the “Mad Gasser” in the 1940’s.
Mattoon IL
Bert
That particular tornado (or tornadoes…I think that it is believed to have had several individual tornadoes from a single supercell) had a path nearly 300 miles long (longer than the infamous tri-state tornado of 8 years later). I think Mattoon was the town that was worst hit, though, so I’ll go with it. Any good?
DING DING DING
Thats the correct answer!
This sets a new record for Illinois Where-Is-It!
The Seventh Illinois Where-Is-It? Will come later on tonight, so keep watching!
Yes, the path of that tornado was longer than that of the Tri-State, but this one was not continusly on the ground. So that is why the Tri-State gets the distiction of being the longest tornado path on record.
Wow–missed it completely!
(Even if I hadn’t missed it I would have missed it!)
Tom Skilling of Chicago Tribune (and WGN) had a feature on the weather page of the Tribune about a month or so ago about the tornado. That was one nasty storm.
ed