Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1904 — STORM HAVOC AT THE FAIR. [ARTICLE]

STORM HAVOC AT THE FAIR.

Thousands Are Drenched and the Pike Is Damaged. Sweeping down from the north against the heat* and humidity that made St Louis a dead center of atmospheric stagnation last week, a terrific storm of cold wind and hail wrought death and havoc in the world’s fair city Monday afternoon. The icy gale struck the exposition at a time when the grounds were thronged with sightseers and threw the visitors Into a panic. Thousands who were within a few steps of the buildings or just outside -the attractions on the Pike were drenched by the sudden downpour.

The storm swooped down at the rate of sixty-five miles an hour, driving its hail missiles with the velocity of bullets. It ripped into the .barnlike exposition structures and shook them until the Jefferson Guards were ordered to lock the immense doors in order that the wind might not raise the roofs. The rain came down in torrents, turning the "cascades” into a Niagara, bringing the lagoon almost to a level with the lawns and causing the electric launches and gondolas to put hurriedly for port. Strong gusts struck the canvas mountains on the Pike and blew over some of the gigantic painted boulders that tower over the restaurant in the Tyrolean Alps —known to visitors as the “Petroleum Alps.” Jerusalem was shaken to its foundations.

The storm had died to a velocity of forty-eight miles an hour when it struck the center of St Louis, but it still retained strength enough to blow twelve barges across the river and to send several river packets crashing against the stone levees. Twenty-five houses in Twenty-second street were unroofed, and the steeple of the North Presbyterian Church was blown into the front of a grocery store. Plate glass windows were broken like egg shells, and telephone and telegraph wires were carried away for miles. Five persons were injured, and Thomas O’Toole was struck by lightning near his home and instantly killed. Five persons who lived in houseboats in the river are not accounted for and may have been drowned. A panic occurred at the Union race track. When the storm was at its worst 3,000 men, women and children were running wildly about the grand stand seeking shelter. A bolt of lightning struck near the stand, but no one waa injured.