Hollis, Kansas Tornado
May
14, 1909
Kansas City, May 14. - - A series of tornadoes
in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma late today
killed at least seven, injured fifty-five, laid
waste one town, wrecked a train and
did great damage to property. Twenty-five
were injured by a storm
that
swept over Mount Washington and Fairmont park,
suburbs of Kansas City. At least two of
these are thought to be fatally injured and
others seriously. The town of Hollis, Kas.,
near Concordia, was swept away. Here three
were killed and ten injured. The killed:
FRED
JEARDO
JOHN
CYRE
JOHN
ECKERT
The Eckstram family, consisting of five
persons, is missing. Their house is laid
in ruins and it is thought they are dead.
[and on page 5...]
A elevator was blown over on the railroad
tracks at Hollis, Kas., on the Concordia branch,
where it is said a tornado passed through and
killed two persons. Details of this storm were
lacking and telephone and telegraph wires
leading to that locality were reported down.
The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln,
NE, 15 May 1909

Kansas City, May 15 - - Five members of the
Eckstrom family, supposed to have been killed on
their farm near Hollis, Kas., in last night's
tornado, and Charles Quance, a ranchman,
who was believed to have succumbed near Larned,
Kas., escaped unharmed to tornado cellars.
The fact became known late today when wire
communication, demoralized by the storm, was
resumed with these points. The known dead
from the storm in this part of the southwest is
three and the injured fifty-five. None of
the injured succumbed to their injuries today.
The principal damage was done at Hollis, a
town of 150 inhabitants near Concordia, Kas.,
and at Mount Washington, Mo., a suburb eight
miles east of Kansas City. In both of
these places practically every house was either
damaged or demolished, and dozens of persons
injured.
The dead:
FREDERICK JEARDOE, a boy, at Hollis, Kas.
WILLIAM ELLIOTT, a carpenter, blown from a
derrick at Chitwood, near Joplin, Mo.
WILLIAM ACKLEY, engineer of a pile driver, a
member of a Santa Fe rail bridge gang working
near Great Bend, Kas.
The injured: Hollis, Kas., three.
The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, NE,
15 May 1909

DAMAGE BY KANSAS STORM.
Two Persons Killed and Several Injured Near
Hollis.
CONCORDIA, KAS., May 15. – Details of the
tornado at Hollis and vicinity about 5 o’clock
last evening show it to have been most
destructive to life and property. The storm
covered a distance of about six miles, its path
being narrow, but it took everything before it
in Hollis. The Lacy
and Loughmiller
stores, the Burlington and Union Pacific depots,
the Midland elevator, the Wesleyan Methodist and
Methodist Episcopal churches were all completely
wrecked, together with four residences in the
town, while only three of the twenty-five or
thirty buildings which constitute the village
escaped damage.
In the country adjacent the
H. Roswell
farmhouse and barn, the
A. E. Fortney house and barn,
L. A. Price’s
house, A. L. Abbott’s
house and Miles
Billings’s [sic] house were torn to
pieces.
The Union Pacific freight train which stood on a
siding at Hollis when the storm struck was
turned completely over, nine freight cars and a
passenger coach being upset. There were several
passengers on board and all were more or less
injured. Many persons were caught in houses or
struck by flying debris, two persons being
killed and many injured.
FRED JEARDOE, 15 years old, was
killed beneath a wagon which was turned over on
him as he was hauling a load of corn.
MRS. WALTER DALTON
was blown out into the yard when the
house was wrecked and died last night. A list of
the more dangerously injured, follows:
J. M. Lacy,
leg broken, internal injuries, probably fatal.
Charles Lacy, arm broken.
Charles Krohn, neck and back injured,
serious.
Henry Christie, bad injuries about
the head.
A Clay Center traveling salesman
named Laird,
head badly hurt, may die.
Conductor [illegible],
Brakeman Carmody and
Brakeman Eagan of the Union Pacific,
bad contusions and sprains.
No estimate has been placed on the property
loss, but it will not fall short of $50,000.
The Kansas City Times, Kansas City, MO 15
May 1909
Transcribed by
Jenni Lanham. Thank you,
Jenni!

Photographs of the Hollis Tornado from Kansas and the West
Photograph Collection, from Wichita State University Libraries,
Department of Special Collections.

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