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Earthquake!
On this day in 1923, an earthquake struck El Paso and resulted in the only death associated with a Texas quake when an adobe house collapsed on a man in neighboring Cuidad Juárez. Even though earthquakes are not common in the Lone Star State, more than 100 recorded tremors have occurred since 1847. Most have been of low magnitude and caused either by relief of tectonic stress along fault lines or by well injections connected with oil and gas field operations. Many of the quakes have hit West Texas and the Panhandle. One such occurrence in 1929 destroyed the hotel at Lobo in Culberson County, but the largest earthquake to shake Texas hit Valentine in Jeff Davis County in 1931 and measured roughly 6.0 on the Richter Scale. Other notable historic quakes shook Seguin (1847), Creedmore (1902), Hempstead (1910), and Mexia-Wortham (1932). In 1995 an earthquake measuring 5.7, the second largest in Texas history, rocked Alpine.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- EARTHQUAKES
- GEOLOGY
- VALENTINE, TX
- LOBO, TX
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Bluebonnet proclaimed state flower (1901)
- Globe of the Great Southwest groundbreaking (1958)
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