half of them severely. The tornado was classified as an EF3. The damage included three recreational vehicles factories that are among the community's largest employers: Fairmont Homes, Franklin Coach, and Gulf Stream Coach. Amish migration to Nappanee The religious group that broke off of the Mennonites was formed in 1525 in Switzerland as part of the Radical Reformation and quickly spread to Germany and the Netherlands. As a more radical branch of the wider Protestant Reformation against Catholic practices, the Mennonites were vigorously persecuted by religious and worldly authorities. During the last decade of the 17th century a group from the Mennonites led by Jakob Ammann separated to form the Amish group which was named after its leader. During the 18th century, the Amish were attracted to the promise of religious freedom in William Penn's colony and thus settled in Pennsylvania. Amish then migrated to Middlebury in 1841 coming from Holmes County, Ohio, where they had migrated to from Pennsylvania, starting in 1809. Nappanee's Amish originate from the early Amish immigrants from southwest Germany, notably the Palatinate, to Pennsylvania in the middle of the 18th century. Amish families who became Old Order Amish in the second half of the 19th century first arrived in southwest Elkhart County in the early 1840s, and various other religious conservative denominations followed them. The First Mennonite Church in the area was founded in 1854, but members worshiped in homes, then built a schoolhouse in 1867 and also used it for services for several years (as did other denominations with their permission). The first permanent building was erected in 1878, two years after the United Brethren Church moved from the schoolhouse into its own building (only to sell it and build a new building in 1888 and remodel it in 1928). Nappanee is still surrounded by family farms of conservative Anabaptists, including the Amish, Mennonites, and the Schwarzenau Brethren. National Register of Historic Places Arthur Miller House Frank and Katharine Coppes House Downtown Nappanee Historic District Nappanee Eastside Historic District Nappanee West Park and Pavilion Stahly–Nissley–Kuhns Farm Geography According to the 2010 census, the city has a total area of , all land. Nappanee is now surrounded by fertile farmland as the headwaters of the Wabash River in northern Indiana, but initially was one of the least desirable areas of what became Elkhart County, due to dense woods and widespread swamps, particularly tamarack marshes. Actually,