Independence, Iowa Tornado

June 22, 1882

DUBUQUE, June 23.- Word was received here at 10 o'clock last night of a heavy wind and rain storm along the lines of the Illinois Central Railway west, during the afternoon, and that great damage had been done at Independence. The telegraph wires were all prostrated, not one being in working order last night. It is impossible to get communication with the outside. Such facts as we learn were brought in by Conductor Keepers and some passengers. The storm struck Independence at a little before 5 o'clock and wrought great destruction; fences were torn up, barns wrecked, houses leveled, and trees uprooted. Nearly all the business houses were unroofed and the plate-glass smashed. The depot of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway is said to be a wreck. Fonda's and O'Brien's stores were unroofed, as was also a livery stable, and report says that a bridge across the river was injured. Selle's circus was exhibiting at Independence, but fortunately the blow came up before the evening performance began. The circus tent was badly damaged, and one wagon containing animals was lifted bodily from the ground and carried some distance. Many people were in town, and many of their horses were killed by flying debris and their wagons smashed. Two men were killed, but it is impossible to obtain their names. Another man had his arm broken.

The New York Times, New York, NY 24 Jun 1882

Transcribed by Sherry McClellan.  Thank you, Sherry!

THE CYCLONE OF 1882

On June 22, 1882, Independence was visited by a windstorm so severe that it partook of many of the characteristics of a tornado, in fact, from the newspaper accounts it would appear as the genuine article without any consultation of encyclopedia definitions. It was of such proportions as to call forth a special edition of the Journal printed during the night following the storm and issued early the next morning and like the Big Fire of 1873 has served as a comparative event for all these thirty-two years since its occurrence. This tornado freighted with great destruction to property and leaving death in its path, struck Independence at 5 P. M. and for a time it seemed as though the town was to be utterly and entirely destroyed, to succumb to a fate like Grinnell, and other Iowa towns had previously been entirely destroyed. The course of the storm was southeasterly and no portion of the town escaped its fury while all the country north and west suffered great destruction of farm buildings, orchards and crops.

Independence was crowded with people who had come in to attend Sell’s Circus and how they all so miraculously and providentially escaped injury is a great mystery.
The first thing within the city limits to be demolished was the big windmill at the Illinois Central water tanks, and this was torn into a thousand pieces and scattered broadcast. On the fiat just south of the water tanks were pitched the circus tents. The wind gently lifted the immense canvass, toyed with it a few seconds, in mid air, and then flung it into a shapeless, tangled mass of ropes, poles and canvass, which proved to be a complete loss to the circus. Three of the canvass men received severe injuries, and a boy who had joined the company at Waterloo only the day previous had an arm broken. Had the storm come a half hour earlier, when the great tent was a living, breathing sea of human beings, great loss of life must have resulted for the air was thick with the flying debris and undoubtedly a panic would have occurred. A cage containing six lions was upset, one of the wheels snaped off and the door wrenched open, the largest lion with a terrible roar bounded out and the others were about to follow when the brave keeper, who was sitting on top of the cage when it was overturned and was precipitated among the debris, with great courage and presence of mind sprang and captured the beast and held him by the mane until a stout rope could be procured. He then tied him to one of the wagons and rushed to prevent the others from escaping, which he was successful in doing. The big lion was much frightened and excited and only with difficulty and by blindfolding him was he finally induced to go back in the cage.

On Chatham Street, all the way from the Illinois Central Depot to Main Street, a fearful wreckage of buildings and trees was left in the wake of the storm. The street was thronged with people and teams returning from the circus and with the air literally filled with flying boards, bricks and branches, it truly was miraculous how all the people escaped injury.

The damage to property was estimated at fully thirty thousand dollars; about fifty buildings were completely destroyed. One of the heaviest sufferers was John Phillips. The roof of his newly completed block was blown off and the upper stories were badly wrecked. The Insane Asylum sustained serious damage, the immense smokestack, 130 feet in height, was blown down, the work shops wrecked and a considerable portion of the mansard roof torn from the main building. The damage to that building alone was estimated at not less than thirty thousand dollars. The storm seems to have started in Blackhawk County, about seven miles northwest of Jesup and traveled southeasterly. Many fine barns in this portion of the county were totally destroyed and an inestimable damage was done to both fruit and shade trees, a damage that required many years to obliterate. Hundreds of giant oaks that withstood the buffetings of the elements for scores of years were twisted off, their topless shattered trunks standing as mute witnesses of the terrible strength of the monster against which they combated. Southeast of Independence there was no serious damage outside of Sumner Township, beyond this the storm assumed the character of a stiff gale. But the saddest feature of the visitation was the loss of life accompanying it. Two young men were the victims. William Loran, aged eighteen, the son of a widow living on Division Street in the Third Ward, was crushed to death by the house moving off its foundation just as he was descending the stairs into the cellar. The other a youth of fifteen, named Ripke, whose parents resided near Pilot Grove, was visiting at the residence of William Bradley in the south part of town, near the cemetery. Just as the storm had reached the climax of its fury and the building was rocking and swaying with every gust, the boy seeking to escape started to leave the house when it crumbled and fell in, killing him instantly. Mr. Bradley and wife remained in the house and escaped with slight injuries.

As is usual with such storms many peculiar and freakish things occurred.

A few days after the storm, Mr. Edward Cobb, in passing along the east side of his farm just west of town, saw a pine shingle that had been driven clear through an inch fence board, the end protruding an inch on the opposite side from which it entered, the shingle was blown from the roof of his barn some forty rods distant.

Barrels, wash tubs, boilers, and every other conceivable thing were seen circling through the air and were deposited in many ludicrous places. Bricks off chimneys were sent crashing through neighbors’ windows and scarcely a house in Independence but was more or less damaged.

For many years, the memory of this storm made the citizens who had gone through the experience pale with apprehension at the appearance of a threatening cloud in the sky. But during all these intervening years, while death and devastation have been carried on the wings of the wind to many a town and hamlet, even in our usually fortunate state, this locality has been singularly free from such visitations.

History of Buchanan County, Iowa, and its people, 1914, pages 321-322

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