Galveston Hurricane 1900 - Film: Thomas A. Edison - Music: Tom Rush

Check out my Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/bob_toomey. On September 8, 1900, the deadliest hurricane in US history made landfall at Galveston, Texas. Winds reached a speed of 145 miles per hour, killing between 6,000 and 12,000 individuals out of Galveston's population of 37,000. On September 24, Thomas A. Edison sent a film crew to Galveston to record the aftermath of the storm, and part of that film is what you're seeing here. The song, "Wasn't that a Mighty Storm," was written sometime later. The lyrics mention a seawall, but Galveston didn't build a seawall until after the 1900 hurricane, and whoever wrote the song didn't know that. It was first recorded by John Lomax in 1934 at Darrington State Farm, a prison near Sandy point, Texas, sung by "Sin-Killer" Griffin who claimed authorship. A new, more powerful arrangement was created in the 1960s by Eric Von Schmidt, who gave the song to Tom Rush.