The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-28
SEYEREST STORM OF
 YEARS RACES IN WEST
RAILROAD, TELEGRAPH AND TROLLEY LINES PROSTRATED.

In Its Extent the Disturbance ia the
 Most Widespread of Any in Recent
 Years-More Violent in the North
 west Than Other sectIOns-wind
 BIows soventy-twO Miles an Hour In
 Chicago.
 Chicago, Dec. 27.-one of the most severe storms of recent years has ragged between the Rock Mountains and the Great Lakes to-days causing much trou- ble to street car, railroad and telegraph companies.
 The latter were the greatest sufferers, for the blizzard was preceded by heavy fog and drizzling rain which made the wires almost unworkable. The intense cold and terrific gale that followed close upon the fog coated the wires with ice and later threw poles to the ground. Railroad trains were badly delayed all through the west, some of them being twenty-iour hours late. Street car traffic was practically at stamdstill.
 In its extent the storm was the most widespread of any in fifteen years. Counting the fog as component part, the storm stretched from the Rocky mountains to New York, and from Vim nipeg to New Orleans. Three fatalities were reported in this vicinity. At 10 o'clock tonight the storan was reported as subsiding at Kansas City. but 1t will be several days before nor nal conditions are restored throughout the entire section.
 At Chicago and east of here the storm was still raging with great violence. and was expected to continue through out the night, the center of the storm being apparently between Chicago and Cleveland.
 Reports from Kansas City early in the day were that the storm was ac- companied by high winds and snow which on the level would have been about one foot in depth. It was drift ed so badly by the gale, however, that i in nearly all the cities of Nebraska, Kansas and western Missouri street
 
 The telegraph wires were down in all di- rections, and it was with extreme diff culty thaticommunication with the west land northwest was kept up. All trains through that part of the country were hopelessly behind their schedule. The storm reached eastern Missouri by noon and the temperature in St. Louis went down twenty degrees in two hours, while the wind, blowing at forty miles an hour, piled the snow up in the streets and in great drifts.
 At Omaha and Des Moines, conditions similar to those in Kansas City were reported. All through western Iowa the storm ragged in great fury. All trains In this section were reported | from one to six hours late.
 Tn the northwest the storm was even more violent than throughout Missouri and Iowa. In St. Paul the SHOW com menced to fall early last night and grew heavier all through the night while the wind blew fifty miles an hour. The heavy snow and the gale worked havoc with railroads, and some passen- ger trains from the Pacific coast were reported tonight as twenty-four hours overdue.
 In the south conditions were some what better, the snow in many places being changed to a heavy rainfall, pre- ceded by thunder and lightning and followed by high winds Nashville, Louisville, New Orleans. Montgomery and Memphis all reported exceedingly heavy rains, a rapidly falling thermom- eter and terrific winds.
 In the Ohio river valley the first heavy rain in five months commenced falling early in the day and continued through out the night. The storm was appreci ated by the boatmen along the Ohio and it's tributaries, for the stage of wa ter in those streams has of late been ! low.
 The storm struck Chicago shortly after noon and increased until at 5:S0 lo'clock the wind had a velocity of sew enty-two miles an hour. By 7so'clock [ l 1t dropped to occasional destructive gusts which in many sections hurled pedestrians from their feet and over turned light delivery wagons. Trees were blown down, chimneys toppled over and several frame shacks were lleveled wdth the ground There were numerous instances of persons being bruised by being blown from. their feet while passing some of the high build ings. Between noon and ' o'clock in the evening the mercury dropped from thirty-four to eleven degrees above zero.
 The late reports from Wisconsin are that the storm was the most severe ever known in that section of the coun- try. Damage in the city of Madison is estimated at $10O,O0O. In Indiana the damage done by the storm was espe- cially heavy in the oil fields where fully 1000 derricks were blown down and all operations suspended. The loss on der. ricks alone, around Muncie is placed at S2OOOOo, and at $50,0O0 around Portland.
 s6O0,O0O Given by Unknown Person.