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Lorain Tornado Tour
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Although a humble looking structure, not designed by an architect, but built as a vernacular architecture structure and constructed based on local needs, using only materials readily available, the Tornado Building was very important in the grand scheme of Lorain’s history. Built in the early 1900s, the Old Griffin Hotel was the first business to reside within the building. In 1912, the Majestic Hotel took over for a little over a decade. The building lost its entire third floor at the fate of the tornado that devastated nearly every building in the downtown area. H.P. Kirkland Furniture took over the building in the 1920s and rebuilt the third floor, while also adding a 60 ft, three story extension at the rear of the building. Since then, Brownie Furniture Store and Stillman-Deutsch Furniture and Appliance Store, amongst other businesses, have called the Tornado building home