Rockford Tornado of September 14, 1928

The September 14, 1928, tornado which affected the Rockford, Illinois, area was associated with a low pressure area moving across the upper Midwest into the Great Lakes. Scattered thunderstorms ahead of a dry line and cold front produced hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and flooding as they moved through parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana during the afternoon and evening hours.

As these storms moved across the region, a small outbreak of tornadoes occurred in Wisconsin (4 tornadoes), Illinois (1 tornado), and Michigan (3 tornadoes). These tornadoes were responsible for at least 14 deaths and at least 115 injuries (Grazulis 1990).

Just one day prior, this same storm system was responsible for another outbreak of tornadoes in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa which killed at least 9 and injured at least 86.

Although some of the general weather patterns associated with tornadoes were known as early as the 1880s, forecasts for tornado outbreaks were practically non-existent until at least the 1950s. In 1884, John P. Finley of the U.S. Army Signal Corps (predecessor to today's National Weather Service) began a brief experiment to forecast days with conditions favorable for tornadoes. The success of this experiment was controversial and the forecasts were not shared publicly (Bradford, 1999). The use of the term "tornado" was even banned in official forecasts from 1887 to 1938 (Coleman et al., 2011).

On September 14, 1928, the only warning residents of the Rockford area would have that severe weather was going to occur is seeing a storm forming on the horizon.

Damage from the September 14, 1928, tornado was determined through a combination of multiple sources. Both Rockford's Midway Village Museum and the Rockford Public Library have large collections of photographs from the event. Multiple newspapers were also published in Rockford at the time, each with multiple articles discussing the event and the damage it caused. One particular article, printed in the Rockford Daily Republic, listed addresses and descriptions of every building damaged in Rockford based upon construction permits submitted to the Rockford Building Department.

For areas outside of Rockford, damage locations were determined by reviewing damage descriptions and names of farm owners and then comparing these to historical property maps.

The highest number of injuries and fatalities at a single location occurred at Rockford Chair and Furniture Company's Factory B. While most of the building was damaged, the northern half of the building received the most significant damage with the roof and walls almost completely collapsed. Newspaper accounts suggest that most of the 8 fatalities and 40 injuries occurred in the northern, collapsed section of the building.

The site of the factory, at today's 301 Peoples Avenue, remains in an industrial part of Rockford. Airplane imagery from 1939 shows that most of the factory was demolished and not rebuilt. Satellite imagery from recent decades shows new industrial buildings on the site, but these were currently unoccupied as of early 2024.

Multiple houses were damaged near the National Lock Company and Union Furniture factory. Notable damage included a house that was lifted off its foundation and rolled onto its side. The roof of a house in this area was also picked up by the tornado and deposited near 17th Avenue and 7th Street, killing 3 children.

The collapse of the southeast part of the roof and upper walls into the basement of the Union Furniture factory caused 2 fatalities. The nearby National Lock Company and a recently constructed factory likely owned by National Mirror Works each had numerous large window panes blown out. The site of these buildings also remain in an industrial part of Rockford. Aerial imagery shows that most of these buildings were repaired and remain as of 2024.

Despite the collapse of portions of the roofs and walls at both National Chair Company and Elco Tool, no fatalities occurred.

The 1928 tornado caused damage in numerous residential neighborhoods as it moved through southeast Rockford. In the Rockview neighborhood - located between Charles Street and Broadway in the general vicinity of the old Hallstrom School - notable damage included two houses that were shifted completely off their foundations and pushed into the street. Damage to these structures was otherwise confined to shingles, siding, and blown out windows. Newspaper accounts suggest that these houses were moved back onto their foundations and repaired, which is supported by recent aerial and street-level imagery.

Another photo, likely taken in the same neighborhood, shows an unknown structure with the roof removed and all walls collapsed. The exact location of this damage could not be determined. Just to the north of Rockview, along Charles Street, was the location of the Carlson Roofing Company building, which was destroyed.

Damage elsewhere along the tornado's track included a few removed roofs, blown out windows, damage to shingles and siding, and significant tree damage.

The storm responsible for producing the 1928 Rockford tornado also produced a narrow corridor of heavy rainfall, which caused caused flash flooding in the eastern portion of Rockford. As is common with supercell thunderstorms, the area of heaviest rainfall was just to the north of the tornado. This rainfall passed close to downtown Rockford and areas just to the east, causing flash flooding along Keith Creek. Just north of downtown Rockford, the volunteer cooperative observer on Churchill Street recorded only 0.82 inches of rainfall.

Most of the Keith Creek floodplain was inundated, flooding multiple structures, roadways, and vehicles from near Charles Street downstream to the Rock River. Due to repeated flooding over several decades that followed, numerous residences along Keith Creek between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue were bought out and demolished.