Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1902 — THREE TOWNS ARE RAZED. [ARTICLE]

THREE TOWNS ARE RAZED.

Cyclone In North Dakota Causes Great Destruction in a Wide Path. The towns of Emerado and Thompson in Grand Forks County, N. D., and Borup in Norman County, Minn., were swept by a cyclone storm Tuesday night about 8 o’clock and all suffered much damage. Considerable loss of life is feared. ffhe first intimation of the seriousness of the storm eame at 8 o’clock, when the Great Northern and Northern Pacific telegraph lines in the storm district were scuddenly stopped. A few moments later communication west of Fargo on the Great Northern and west of Ulen on the Northern Pacific was absolutely cut off. Telephone lines suffered the same damage, and from the St. Paul headquarters at midnight it was impossible to reach farther than Fargo. Bornp Flattened Out. The little town of Borup on the St. Vinceut line of the Great Northern is an absolute wreck. The final report was that the entire town was wiped out and hardly a structure of auy sort, left stand' lng. This came from a Great Northern telegraph operator, who, ofter his station office had been laid flat, saved his key from the ruins and tapped the wires at the nearest available point. He also reported the razing of a hamlet some miles distant with destruction of a large amount of property. With the report from the St. Vincent branch came reports that the towns of Emerado, about seven miles from Grand Forks, with a population of 290, and Thompson, between Grand Forks and Larimore, had been destroyed. At Thompson the Great Northern station lies a confused mass of wreckage, directly across the main line. Stores and residences are in ruins and the main portion of the town is wiped out. The population is about 200. Sweeps Down from the North. The reports indicate that the cyclone developed southwest of the Lake of the Woods country and took a course down across the northern part of the State, traveling towards the southeast. At Winnipeg Junction a stock train was blown completely from the track, but whether or not the crew escaped could not ho learned. Linemen and relief trains were at once started for the district. A report from Grand Forks tells of two storms, both of which were violent, and the outer edges of both of which passed over the city. The first passed just north of Grand Forks at 5:31) p. m., and the second a little south at 8 o’clock. A heavy fall of small hailstones came with the first and in the second the ground was covered with stones measuring two inches in diameter. The depots at Emerado, Thompson and McDonalds were blown away. In Meckinock, Gilby, Inkster, Conway and other towns north and west great damage was done. Fargo report* thousands of acres of grain destroyed.