New Madrid: The Town That Shook the Continent
Missouri
Revolutionary War officer George Morgan founded New Madrid in seventeen eighty-nine under a Spanish land grant, naming it to flatter the king of Spain. It grew into the third-largest settlement between Saint Louis and New Orleans. Then, on December sixteenth, eighteen eleven, the earth broke open beneath it.
A series of earthquakes, now understood as among the most powerful in recorded North American history, struck the New Madrid Seismic Zone over the following two months. Scientists estimate the three largest tremors reached magnitudes somewhere between seven and eight, though estimates vary. The Mississippi River ran backwards in places.
New lakes formed overnight. The shaking was felt as far away as Washington and Canada. The town was rebuilt, and residents stayed.
New Madrid sits atop the same fault system today, which geologists say remains capable of producing a major earthquake. The region is the most seismically active east of the Rocky Mountains.
