Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1892 — GREAT LOSS OF LIFE. [ARTICLE]

GREAT LOSS OF LIFE.

Terrible Work of a Cyclone In Southern Minnesota. St. Paul dispatch: The phenomenally wet and stormy season has culminated in a series of eyolone bursts, which occurred Thursday afternoon, and wore spread over half the southern end of the State, extending from Spring Valley, Fillmore County, on the east, to Heron Lake. Jackson County, on the west, and to Blue Earth County on the north. It was the fiercest and most destructive storm Minnesota ever knew, not excepting even the terrible St. Cloud cyclone of 1886, in which eight-six lives were sacrificed. At this time only the most meager details can be gathered. Not only are the telegraph wires down in the section devastated but the train service is utterly demoralized, and many of the worst casualties occurred in districts remote from either rail or wife. Three distlnot cyclone centers seemed to havo been marked, and in each the havoc was frightful. It is now believed that nearly 100 lives have been lost, as nearly every meager report received here concludes by saying the worst is to come, and later reports will swell the number of the killed and injured. In every case thore was the regular funnel cloud with its doadly sections, roar and restb ss sweep, followed by a cloudburst. Nothing was left standing in the path of the cyclone, houses, troes and barns having been swept away. The storm oenters seem to have been at Wells, Faribault, County; Sherbourne, Morton County; and Spring Valley, Fillmore County.

At Wells the storm came on without the slightest warning, the frightful roar of the approaching whirling column being the flrstglntlmatlon. The cloud veered to the south as It reached tho outskirts of the village, leaving a terrible scene of death and destruction. So far as now known, seventeen persons were killed In this immediate vicinity, as follows: John Brown and wife, Herman Brenner, Mrs. John Matuslck, Wealand Steen, wife and child, John Plotios, Wm. Plctlos, Mrs. John Dell, Albert Klingbert and two children, Mrs. John Joerson and two children. All of these are farming people. Twenty-five are reported more or loss seriously injured, but in the excitement that reigned their names could not be ascertained. The damage to houses, barns, cattle And crops cannot now be even estimated, but it will be very groat. At Albert Lea eight are known to have been killed, and many others are missing. Minnesota Lake reports five dead. The cyclone was followed by a terriflo downpour of rain, tho water falling in an apparently solid mass. Every stream is out of its banks, and not a train is today running. Washouts are reported In every direction, with bridges gone, trestles undermined, and in places the roadbeds themselves are gone. It is thought when communication is established throughout the stormswept district the list of dead will be found not far short of one hundred persons.