DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and some stories the marker doesn't have to dress up. May 18, 1902. A Sunday afternoon in Goliad, Texas.
Folks were going about their Sunday business, the kind of slow, warm hours that belong to that particular day of the week. And then, at 3:35 in the afternoon, a cyclone — one considered among the two most disastrous in all of Texas history — touched down on the south side of the San Antonio River. Now, people who were there said it sounded like a heavily loaded freight train bearing down on the town.
You close your eyes and think about that sound rolling toward you on a Sunday afternoon, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. The storm ripped a path a mile long and half a mile wide across the northwest section of Goliad. Over a hundred homes — destroyed.
Gone. The official death toll came to 114 souls. Among the dead, at least fifty members of a black Methodist church, who perished when their sanctuary was razed to the ground.
Fifty people. In one building. On a Sunday, which means they were right where their faith had called them to be.
When the winds finally passed and the silence settled in, Goliad had to reckon with what was left. The Goliad County courthouse — still standing — became a temporary hospital and a morgue both at once. One building holding the living and the dead, side by side, in the long aftermath of a Sunday that nobody in that town would ever stop measuring time against.
That's the Goliad Tornado of 1902. One of two storms the whole state of Texas remembers as the worst it ever saw.
What the marker says
A cyclone, considered one of the two most disastrous in Texas history, struck Goliad on Sunday, May 18, 1902. The twister touched down on the south side of the San Antonio River at 3:35 p.m. Sounding like a heavily loaded freight train, the storm ripped a mile long, half-mile wide path across the northwest section of town, destroying over 100 homes and leaving an official death toll of 114. At least 50 members of a black Methodist church died when their sanctuary was razed. After the disaster, the Goliad County courthouse served as a temporary hospital and morgue. (1978) Incise in base: Marker sponsor: Goliad Rotary Club, 1978