Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1907 — DAMAGE by storm. [ARTICLE]

DAMAGE by storm.

Live* Are Lost and Crop, in Many Places Are Ruined. Tweuty-five lives are reported to have been lost and property, damaged to .the amount of $500,000 in a tornado which swept over the southern part of Minnesota, northern lowa, the southwestern end of Wisconsin and a part of Illinois. Dispatches tell of deaths In almost every point where the tornado struck. A farmer, his wife and son were killed near Mason City, lowa, their home being destroyed over their heads while they were in bed. Two coaches Qf a Green Bay, Wis., passenger train -were thrown over an embankment near Winona, Minn., and three men were severely injured. The wind reached a velocity of about ninety miles an hour and was accompanied by terrific rain and lightning. The village of Joice, lowa, was wrecked by the wind and one person killed and many injured. Twenty or more buildings were unroofed. At Marshalltown a severe windstorm, accompanied by hail, leveled corn, blew down loaded fruit trees, and did much other damage. Shipping at Clear Lake and mahy cotrages were destroyed. A half dozen barns and four •houses near Rockwell were demolished, and the roof was blown from the Catholic church at Rockwell. Many houses were destroyed in Winona and the roofs were torn off twenty large factory buildings. The lighting plant was wrecked, leaving the town in darkness. The power house of the local street car company was, put out of commission. The cars in the streets were overturned, and one of them was carried, against the side or a store. Fronts of the stores were blown in and the wind carried all kinds of stock from the shelves and counters. A severe hailstorm practically devas tated the - corn crop in the western townships of Peoria county, 111., and the east tier of townships in Knox county. Hailstones twelve inches in circumference cut the blades from the corn as keenly as if the stalks had been trimmed with a knife. Thirty thousandT acres of corn is completely ruined. The loss is estimated at $4,000,000 to corn alone in Peoria and Knox counties, A. fifty-five mile an hour wind blew during the storm. The large hailstones broke hundreds of windows and the strong wind uprooted trees and moved farm houses and barns from their foundations. At Havana, HL, Miss Margaret Leininger, 16-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Leininger of Mason City, is dead, the result of being struck by lightning during the storm. At Pana, 111., lightning killed Frank Henderson and Frank McMullen. Property valued at $50,000 was destroyed. Corn was stripped by the heavy hail, barns burned, and hay stacks thrown over the fields. A terrific electrical stortn, accompanied by a cyclone, passed over Litchfield, 111., uprooting trees and causing much damage to buildings and crops.