Historedia
Episode 1 of 1

The Halloween Earthquake

When
1895-10-31
Where
near Charleston, Missouri
Part of
Charleston, Missouri earthquake shakes the central United States

On October 31, 1895, at 05:07 CST, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.6 struck near Charleston, Missouri, damaging virtually every building in the city and reshaping nearby Henson Lake.

The earthquake occurred on October 31, 1895, at 05:07 CST, with its epicenter near Charleston, Missouri, on the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Its magnitude is estimated at 6.6, per the seismic-zone source that also records a 6.0 estimate for the January 4, 1843 event. The Charleston, Missouri article qualifies it as the largest quake since the 1812 New Madrid earthquake, which measured at 8.3 and was the biggest recorded quake in the contiguous United States. The quake damaged virtually every building in Charleston, created sand volcanoes, and cracked a pier on the Cairo Rail Bridge; Henson Lake south of Charleston was greatly expanded.

Sources

  1. 1895 Charleston earthquake Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-11
  2. New Madrid seismic zone Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-30
  3. Charleston, Missouri Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-10

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.