Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-09-07
RuItEp by WIND.


A Cyclone In Mfnncsota Destroys One.
Third of the City of Rochester, Many
People Killed and Wounded--Great De.
struction of Crops--A Train Blown from
the Track, with Fatal Results Tho
Storm Elsewhere.
ST. PAUL, Aug. %
A Rochester (Minn.) special to the Pho
neer Press on Tuesday night, about eleven
o'clock, says terrible cyclone visited that
city, leaving death and destruction i'm its
track A thousand people in the city are
homeless and dependent upon the charity of
others for shelter and the necessities of life.
The RESOURCES and sympathies of the
citizens are taxed to the very utmost,
and help is badly needed froul abroad.
An impromptu hospital has been made in
Romners Hall. About forty persons are
being cared for by volunteer corps of
nurses. The damage in the city can not be
less than $500, 900, and in the surrounding
country an estimate is impossible. Fences
are all gone, cattle injured and at large,
stacks of hay and grain have totally disap-
peared, and crops of corn and potatoes are
beaten fiat The terrible list of
casualties in the city comprises
twenty-four persons killed and at least
eighty wounded, of whom the names
have not yet all been received. The
dead are not all identified. The storm
swept through Dodge and Olmsted Coun-
ties, causing greater destruction than the
cyclone of one month ago. The courthouse,
high-schoOl building, Academy of Lourdes,
elevators, depot Touring mills, ten BUSH
ness blocks, besides great many dwellings,,
are unroofed. The Methodist Church is
ruined, and the Congregational Church in
| jured. More than two hundred dwellings
are utterly destroyed. Losses I'm the
county are very great. The condition of
things in the northern part of the city defies
description. A few splintered stumps and
scattered boards remain to shOts where the
Third ward was. The buildings in this part
of the city were mostly one-story frame
houses, many of them without cellars, and
there was the greatest destruction of life.
The mill and dwelling of l.. FoXdre are
total loss, while the immense Zumbrota
planing-mill, John NJ. Cole, proprietor,
is badly wrecked, huge pieces of
| the building being torn out and
carried off. Mr. Cole, who was in the mill
when the cyclone reached it, thinking his
house safer place, started for it, but had
not gone twenty feet before he was caught
up by the wind, carried distance Of eight
/ or ten rods and dashed to the earth
mangled corpse. The residences south
/ of the railroad to Zumbrota street all suf-
fered, losing roofs, windows and chimneys.
/ The shaded Tesidence-Streets arc almost iml-
! passablc from broken trees. pieces
! OF roofs, and debris of all s)rts.
Reports from outlying towns are coming
in slowly, and show that the damage is not
confined to the city. Pleasant Grove is re-
ported annihilated two persons being killed
and ten wounded. The town of Salem lay
| in the track of the cyclone southeast of here,
and is said to be wiped out The top story
of the courthouse is badly wrecked. The
cupola was carried several rods and the
building left exposed TO the weather. The
tower of the school-house lies on the ground
and the roof is damaged. The roof
of the Methodist Church was
/ blown away and the walls are half
crumbled down. The stecpe OF the Con-
! gregational Church was knocked off. A
/ children'S picnic, Just returned from the
country, had taken refuge in the church, bat
all escaped badly scared. Had some of the
! children been at home they must aliGost
| certainly have been killed. The railway
/ depot is unroOfed and badly riddled, The
roof of q. w. Nandusen IL Co.'S elevator
was carried away, and the warehouse
adjoining crushed. III. j. Horizons
elevator lies across the railway track and
the warehouse and Office of Written &
Judge are mass of ruins. The Rochester
harvester works are completely pulverzed,
not two feet of the wall remaining standing.
All of the machinery is total loss. The
railway bridge is gone. Superintendent
SanbOrn is here with force of men, and
railway communication will soon be secured.
Whenever it was possible people took to
their cellars, and in no case where that was
done was life lost. In the upper part of the
city the darkness was at no time great, but
at the lower part of town it grew dark as
night approached, filling every one with
terror.
The dead, so fer as reported, number
twelve: missing and supposed to have been
killed, three; wounded, iifty-nine.
BLOWN FROM THE RAILS.
OwAToNNA, Mimi, Aug. g.
Meager telegraphc advices were received
here early Wednesday morning that terri
bic accident had occurred between Roch.
ester and Zulnbrota, Mimi, on the Roch-
ester and Northern division OF the Chicago
& Northwestern Road, by which about one
hundred people were killed and wounded.
On account of the interruption of
the Geographic services at Rochester
no information could be obtained
till the arrival of train from the
scene of the disaster with thirty-fve people
who had been wounded in the accident. OF
this number many seemed TO be seriously
hurt, and all were taken to the hospital.
The train that was wrecked was that which
leaves Rochester about four p. m, arriving
at Zumbrota at six p. IN. Ii was caught in
the severe wind and hail-stom that pre-
vailed in that vicinity between four and six
O'Clock in the evening" and while running at
great speed was lifted from the rails and
dashed to pieces. A gentleman who has been
to the scene of the disaster describes it
as one of the most horrfying character.
Every car in the train was almost literally
shattered to pieces by the sudden stop
caused by the train leaving the rails, togeth-
er with the forces of the storm burying the
unfortunate passengers beneath the debris,
killing many and injuring nearly every per-
son aboard the train. The gentleman stated
that nine dead bodies had been taken from
the ruins, and large number of those Sc
riously injured removed to Rochester and
Owatonna. At the time he left the work
of extricating the unfortunate victims was
still progressing, and it was believed the
number of killed would reach a score when
the final summing up was made.
AT OTHER POINTS.
KAssoS, Mimi, Aug. g.
Ole Anderscn's wife was fatally injured
and her mother Instantly killed by a cyclone
Tuesday night. Christian Olson and wife
were killed and their chiId's leg broken.
Houses and barns are entirely destroyed.
AT Canisteo, south of here, the house and
barns OF the Balfraiks are ruined. The
house and barns of Mr. Helmbrecht are
gone, and Mrs Helmbrecht can not be
found. Horses and cattle are found dead in
all directions. News of ruin and death Is
coming in from all directions.
MILWAUKEE, Aug. q.
Dispatches from the northern and central
parts of this State report great damage from
the wind-storm of Tuesday night. At
Stevens Point and in Wood County crops,
fences, buildings and mill-dams were torn
to pieces. An old man in Wood County
was seriously hurt but not fatally injured by
| flying debris. The towns of Stockton and
| New Hone We're visited by a terrible hail.