On April 24, 1908, an F4 tornado tore a 105-mile path from near Dora in Walker County northeast to Sylvania in DeKalb County, killing 35 people and injuring 188 - among them two dead in Blount County, near Royal and Wynnville, not far from Reid’s Gap.
A contemporary account, the Montgomery Advertiser of April 26, 1908, names real casualties at Reid’s Gap itself: three houses and Thomas’s saw mill were blown down, killing a boy, Hubert Thomas. Will Thomas suffered a broken leg and his wife a broken arm; Bud Thomas and three children were also hurt. Dantzler’s saw mill and store were destroyed, and Mrs. Caldwell died the following morning of her injuries, with Mr. Caldwell badly hurt as well. It isn’t clear from the sources gathered so far whether these deaths are included in the “two dead” figure cited for Blount County above, or whether the actual Reid’s Gap-area toll from this storm ran higher.
The lumber trade the storm disrupted had grown large enough the previous year that the L&N had located a full depot at Reid’s Gap to handle the traffic - a measure of how much activity the gap had by then, and how much the storm took from it in a single afternoon.
The tornado wasn’t 1908’s only tragedy at Reid’s Gap. That September, a fast L&N passenger train struck a horse and buggy at a grade crossing near the gap, killing J.A. Calvert instantly and seriously injuring his daughter, Alba Ann, as the two drove out to visit relatives. A Blount County jury awarded the Calvert estate and his daughter a combined $22,500 against the railroad - a striking sum for the time, and a measure of how dangerous the line through the gap could be.
