St. Louis, MO (KSDK) - Earlier this week, we celebrated our 65th anniversary here at KSDK. Over the years, weather has always been a big story in St. Louis. And one of the biggest weather events happened 53 years ago Friday.
An unseasonably warm day turned into a deadly night.
Around 1 a.m. on February 10, 1959, a tornado touched down in southwest St. Louis County. Anywhere between 100 and 200 feet wide, it began a path of destruction into the city.
The tornado destroyed buildings in Dogtown, ripping walls from apartments and slicing off entire floors of hotels.
The area, known as Gaslight Square, near Olive and Boyle, was one of the city's hardest hit.
Firefighters went through the city, putting water on damaged buildings.
In awe of the destruction around them, St. Louisans turned to Channel 5.
Realizing he was watching a piece of history, viewer Mark Eisenberg's brother began an audio recording of the broadcast.
All told, the tornado spanned 25 miles in Missouri and Illinois. Twenty-one people died and 354 were injured. It's still one of the worst tornadoes in history to hit our area.
Mark Eisenberg is an amateur historian now. He was generous enough to share those tapes with us.
And special thanks to KSDK archivist Bob Garger, who not only worked here at the time, but helped assemble all this historic footage.
KSDK