Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1899 — WIND AND WATER RAGE. [ARTICLE]

WIND AND WATER RAGE.

Kansas* Oklahoma and Nebraska Towns Seriously Damaged. Tornadoes swept the Kansas towns of Coldwater, Lexington and Ashladd Tuesday night. In Coldwater a dozen houses were wrecked. Joseph Bowers was killed and a half dozen persons were injured. Aldrich’s general store was wrecked, brick block on Main street blown down. The Presbyterian Church was blown away and the court house was unroofed. A terrible windstorm in Ellis County picked up a stretch of wire fence a quarter of a mile long, carried it three miles and wrapped It securely around the steeple of the Mungor Catholic Church. A great amount of rain, amounting almost to a deluge, fell Tuesday night in northwestern Nebraska, from which no fatalities have resulted so far as can be heard, but which has destroyed a considerable amount of property, especially on lowland farms, the Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis and Omaha and the Pacific Short Line railways being also large losers. The town of Homer was the principal sufferer. At Winnebago agency the storm was accompanied by enormous hail.