The fate of the 1890 Census - DESTROYED

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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The loss of veterans records by fire came up in a recent thread and it reminded me of the terrible fate that befell the 1890 Census. The 1890 Census was an important one for other reasons but particularly in Lorain, Ohio. In 1895 the Johnson Steel Company was formed which purchased and razed an entire section of the city known as Globeville. Thanks to the loss of the census we do not have a record of families in that section. Various steel companies that have been there ever since. Homes were buried. Globeville Road was flattened and moved. Everything is just gone.

So what happened to the Census? It is an astonishing story of incompetence by Congress and other agencies. In 1896 the building where the Census records were kept caught fire. Although singed, most of the general schedule records made it through this fire. The records were moved to other storage but no agency could decide what to do with them for decades. In 1921 they caught fire again. For the next 15 years they were moved, examined, and nearly forgotten.

Finally in 1935, according to Congressional notes, “…remaining schedules destroyed by Department of Commerce in 1934 (not approved by the Geographer).” It’s a long, complex story but I found it quite interesting. You can read all about it here:

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I’ve been unhappy about the fate of the 1890 census since 1977, when I took up genealogy (inspired by the Roots miniseries). Thanks for that interesting link.

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There are a couple of gaps in MrsFtG’s genealogy due to the 1890 census. She’d really like to know, for example, where her grandparent’s lived at the time. They had talked about the region they lived in but never the specific location. Since I hail from the same region, inquiring minds want to know. The closest our families came to crossing was that a great-great-uncle of hers lived just across a river from where an uncle of mine lived … separated by quite a few years.