The census that didn't burn
Ask why you can't find your family in the 1890 census and you get one word: fire. The fire is real. The word is not.
On January 10, 1921, a fire started in the basement of the Commerce Department in Washington. Out by 9:45 p.m. Census Director Sam Rogers reported 25 percent destroyed, half the rest damaged by water and smoke.
It had already been hit. In March 1896 a fire destroyed its special schedules on mortality, crime, pauperism and benevolence, by order of the Interior Department.
What survived 1921 was destroyed later, deliberately. In December 1932 the Census Bureau told the Librarian of Congress the damaged volumes were unsalvageable. Congress authorized their disposal on February 21, 1933.
One day earlier, February 20, 1933, Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone of the National Archives Building. The building meant to prevent this arrived a day late.
What's left: fragments from 10 states and DC, just over 6,160 people, on three rolls of microfilm. Union veterans' schedules survived whole.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; NARA, Prologue (1996); NARA 1890 page.
Someone told you a family story you never checked. Put one line in the comments. First look free.