'Voices in the Wind' Exhibit Opens on 50th Anniversary of Oak Lawn Tornado

OAK LAWN, IL -- Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t stop by the local history room at the Oak Lawn library and ask if there is any information on the tornado that ravaged the village on a late April afternoon in 1967.

Last year, more than 2,500 library patrons perused photographs and poured over historic newspapers of the infamous Oak Lawn Tornado that killed 33 people and injured hundreds more on April 21, 1967. The tornado caused $40 million in property damages ($294 million in today's dollars) in Oak Lawn, Hometown, Evergreen Park and other surrounding communities.

In recognition of the tornado’s 50th anniversary, the Oak Lawn Public Library will unveil its new exhibit “Voices in the Wind” using artifacts from the library’s extensive collection of photographs, newspapers, oral interviews and other historic artifacts. Many of the library’s 863 tornado images were donated by residents or their descendants to the library’s community archive, scanned from color slides and black-and-white snapshots of the 1967 tornado’s shocking aftermath.

>> Photo: Elmer C. Johnson's iconic photograph of the Oak Lawn Tornado 'Portrait of a Killer'

The images include Oak Lawn resident Ron Bacon's infamous “green monster” of the tornado bearing down on Oak Lawn that landed Life Magazine weeks after the storm hit, and Vincent Sodaro, who followed the tornado’s path of destruction, documenting mangled homes, crushed cars and transit buses dumped on people’s front lawns.

‘Voices in the Wind’ will open to the public on the 50th anniversary of the tornado with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, April 21. Copies of "The Oak Lawn Tornado of 1967" (Arcadia Publishing) will also be for sale. The exhibit will be on view at the Oak Lawn Public Library, 9427 W. Raymond Ave. (off 95th Street), through April 21, 2018.

Kevin Korst offered Patch a sneak preview of the exhibit during a Facebook Live video.