Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1903 — TORNADO TAKES LIFE. [ARTICLE]

TORNADO TAKES LIFE.

BT. CHARLES, MINN., RAZED AND SEVEN PERSONS KILLED. Widespread Destruction of Property Is Reported from the Northwestern States—Twelve Perish in Waters of Green Bay. The little town of St. Charles, in Winota County, Minn., was practically wiped out by a tornado which struck it at 2:.>0 Saturday afternoon. Seven _peo:.. pie were killed and twenty-eiglit injured, many of them seriously. Tne entire main street of the town was literally wiped out, hardly a business place being left standing. Forty-two residences also were destroyed and the total property damage is estimated at SIOO,OOO. The day had been abnomally sultry for the season of the year; and during the morning tTiere had been showers of rain, accompanied by fitful gusts of wind. Toward noon the sky became- heavily overcast, but indications of a tornado" were entirely lacking. This being Saturday, the country people from the surrounding farms had gathered in large numbers in the main streets to do their customary shopping. At 2:30 the storm cloud was seen approaching from the southwest, and there was anA immediate scramble for places of safety. The tornado struck the town from the southwest quarter and made a clean sweep through it, following almost entirely the line of the main street, and devastating buildings on either side. Then the residences further back from the business center were struck and many of them blov'n completely away. The storm seems to have followed very closely the boundary line between Minnesota and lowa and damage to farm buildings and grain stacks, with injury to human beings and death to live stock is reported from several points in that locality. Two boys, sons of Stephen Matter, were killed at St. Cloud, Minn., while seeking refuge from the storm. They had taken shelter beneath a string of cars on the railway siding and a switching crew backed another string of cars upon them, killing them instantly. The tail end of the cyclone struck Duluth and canned much damage to property, blowing down several buildings and wrecking many boats in the harbor. No on© was injured. It is reported that many of the mines of the Mosaba range were flooded by the extraordinarily heavy rain.

Deaths in Wisconsin. A terrific windstorm, approaching a cyclone, swept over Wisconsin, causing death and destruction. At Independence two persons were killed, three fatftlljs.injured and a score of others badly hurt. At f'/irglfUA’nlley the Reformed Church was demolished and houses on the prairie were swept away. At Racine trees were blown down, also electric light and telephone wires, and half of the city left iu total darkness. Oarl Larson, a painter. 35 years old, was electrocuted on State street. He ran into a telephone wire on the sidewalk, charged with olcctrieHy. Spectators knocked the wire from his hands with, a board. He was taken to a hospital unconscious and will not live. H Thomas Galroth was killed and two men injured by the demolition of a farmhouse at Trempealeau. * Baraboo reports a cloud burst more severe than was ever known in that section this afternoon lasting three hours. Fully four indies of water fell. Many buildings and wind mills were blown down, cellars flooded and several washouts reported. A tornado which struck Blain and Almond killed five persons near Sheridan, Wis., and blew down twenty buildings as near as can be ascertained. In a field $l,lOO in money was picked up, apparently having been blown there by the storm. Twelve Perish ia Green Pay. During ri furious gale that swept over Lake Michigan just at dark the steamer Erie L. Hackley went down off Green inland and twelve persons w'ere drowned. Nine survivors, after drifting all night on pieces of -w-reckage, were rescued the next morning by the steamer Sheboygan of the Goodrich line and taken Jo Fish Creek. The Hackley left Menominee for Egg Harbor about an hour before the coming of the storm. The day hot and muggy, with hardly a breath of air stirring. As bhe sun went down the storm clouds commenced to gabber and there were unmistakable signs of , a coming tempest. Suddeulf, from out the northeast, a furious blast swept the lake, causing the ill-fated vessel to careen until the sails almost touched the water. As the craft righted itself everyone on board rushed on deck. Then came a second blast, stronger than the first, capsizing the vessel and sending it to the bottom. Houses Are Leveled. A cyclone, accompanied by rain and hail, visited the vicinity near Neponsct, 111., doing much damage to farm buildings and crops. The houses of Charles Turnbull and Thomas Murphy were leveled to the ground. Peter Johnson’s residence was blown thirty feet off its foundations. The path of the storm was forty rods wide and touched at several points in Bureau, Stark and Heury counties. Dunpig n heavy thunder-storm at Martinsville, Ind., lightning struck Hiram Pearcy’s bam, three miles east, immediately killing John Slough, a 17-year-old farmhand, nmLm horse in the barn. Notes of Current Events A $500,000 independent theater is to b« erected in Indianapolis. A contract for a $30,000 high school in Junction City, Ivan., has been let. The Missouri University Boarding Club will furniiii board to the student* this year at $1.50 a week. Peter Lenousky of Wilkesbarre was hanged in the county jail for the murder of Antliouy Sennick, a companion mine worker, who was known to have saved money. „ If Congress appropriates all the money Secretary Moody estimates the navy will need the national naval expense account for the fiscal year of 1904-05 will be more than $100,600,060. Secretary Wilson has refused to allow a monster steer from Pawnee County, O. T., to cross the quarantine line for exhibition purpose*. He says it Would be a dangerous precedent