Today in Chicago History: EF-4 tornado obliterates Fairdale

Chicago Tribune

09-04-2025

Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 9, according to the Tribune's archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 80 degrees (1887)
Low temperature: 20 degrees (1989)
Precipitation: 1.49 inches (1882)
Snowfall: 2 inches (2018)
1865: The Tribune reported: 'THE END.' Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
1868: A predawn fire aboard the Goodrich Lines' sidewheeler Seabird caused the passenger ship to burn and sink off Waukegan into Lake Michigan. Between 72 to 100 people were killed.
The fire was started by a porter who tried to throw a bucket of hot coals overboard into a stiff wind. The coals blew back onto a lower deck and ignited freshly varnished tubs. This fire (and others like it) were a factor in the maritime industry converting to iron ships.
1926: Former Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote the play 'Chicago.'
1941: For 26 months, Brookfield Zoo keepers gave Nancy the elephant extra rest, a special diet and even a baby shower, thinking she was pregnant.
On this day they declared she wasn't. 'She gained 600 pounds but only because she was fed so well,' the Tribune reported.
1947: Contrary to widespread belief, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls did not win Chicago's first pro basketball title. The Chicago American Gears — featuring George Mikan and Bobby McDermott — did it by winning the National Basketball League playoffs in the Professional Basketball League of America over the Rochester Royals.
The Gears were cruising when the league declared bankruptcy and evaporated the next November. Thus the title of former Gear Dick Triptow's book, 'Dynasty That Never Was.' Megabucks contracts did not destroy the NBL. Mikan signed what was considered a gigantic contract at $12,000 per year. Most players played for $5,000 or less. Gears tickets at Cicero Stadium or the Amphitheater ranged from 95 cents to $1.85. Players earned bonuses of $6 per basket and $3 per free throw or assist in winning games.
1993: Bo Jackson hit a home run in his first at-bat for the Chicago White Sox after hip replacement surgery.
1994: National anthem singer Wayne Messmer was shot in the neck after leaving Hawkeye's Bar and Grille on Taylor Street in Chicago. While he would recover, doctors were worried if he would recover his voice.
Just six months later, Messmer was joined by his wife, Kathleen, in once again singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at the debut of the Chicago Wolves hockey team. Messmer, the team's executive vice president, said, 'No one can imagine how I felt.'
2015: Two people were killed in one of the strongest tornadoes to hit northern Illinois in more than two decades, and that tornado, which hit and virtually obliterated the town of Fairdale, population 150, was one of two tornadoes to carve through part of northern Illinois.
The more powerful of the two packed winds of 180 to 200 mph, weather service meteorologists said the following day in Rochelle, which also suffered significant damage. As an EF-4, the tornado was one notch below the strongest classification on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The worst damage was in tiny Fairdale, where neighbors Geraldine Schultz, 67, and Jacklyn K. Klosa, 69, were killed. A total of 11 people suffered injuries serious enough to be taken to area hospitals.
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