Rochester, Minnesota Tornado
August 21, 1883
>> Go to
page 1,
2,
3
H. A. Brown’s
house, occupied by
Thomas Clark, was ruined. The
dwellings of Mr. Osborn
and Mr.
Mitzkie were ruined.
William Brown’s
house was wrecked. The dwellings of
Messrs. Bolin, Morse,
Richardson and Burch were ruined. The
upper story of Horace
Cook’s residence was blown off. The
dwellings of Messrs.
Peterson and Briggs were ruined. The
wing and roof of John
Hanson’s dwelling were demolished.
The main part of James
Elliott’s house was ruined.
Charles Ballard’s
house was destroyed.
William Hines’ house was badly
damaged and his barn blown down.
John M. Cole’s
house was slightly damaged. A house of
Mr. Hull,
occupied by C. T.
Sears, was wrecked.
T. A. Whiting’s dwelling was badly
damaged. A wing of Mr.
Buttle’s house was torn off and his
barn blown down. Mr.
Radabaugh’s house was unroofed and
the barn blown down. The wing was torn from
E. F. Whiting’s
dwelling. Two houses belonging to
Mr. Herrick
were damaged. Mr. Mapes’
house was damaged. The end and roof of
B. H. Ellison’s
house were torn off.
Frank Lovell’s shop was torn to
pieces.
B. R. Birch’s
house was moved from the foundation. The roof of
John Miller’s
house was torn off and his barn destroyed. The
roof was torn off and
John Oleson’s house blown from the
foundation. H. Manley’s
house was ruined. One house belonging to
Mrs. Smith was ruined and another
unroofed. M. Y.
Burroughs had two houses and a barn
ruined. A house owned by
Mrs. Graeff was badly damaged.
Mrs. Garner’s
house was destroyed.
Charles Hagadorn’s house was blown
from the foundation and the kitchen blown off.
Mr. Bedie’s
residence was blown from the foundation and the
roof blown off. Mrs.
Chester’s house was destroyed.
Peter Gaffney’s house was destroyed.
A house owned by Mrs.
Cutler and occupied by
Mrs. Dove, was damaged.
Mr. Doll’s house was slightly
damaged. C. W. Baldwin’s
barn was blown down.
The storm crossed the Fifth street bridge, but
did comparatively little damage on the east
side. Asahel Smith’s
barn was unroofed; Part of the wing of
David Lesuer’s
brick residence was torn down and the main
building unroofed. The roof of
Rev. A. H. Kerr’s residence was
damaged. Mrs. Gilbert
Smith’s brick dwelling, occupied by
William West,
was unroofed....
The property loss in Rochester was stated by
Mayor Whitton
as not less than a $100,000.
As soon as the storm passed over the city the
citizens who were not injured went to work with
a will to gather tip the dead and care for the
wounded. The hotels in the vicinity of the
railroad were used as hospitals. The search
among the ruins was continued all night. In the
morning the families who could do so furnished
food to the homeless and the bakeries were drawn
upon. At half past eight in the morning a
meeting was held in
Rommell’s hall, and systematic relief
was organized. Mayor
Whitton appointed the following
committee: Hon. C. M.
Start, Hon. H. C. Butler, Rev. J. W. Bradshaw,
M. G. Spring, O. W. Durkee, Rev. D. Reed, T. H.
Bliss, Rev. William .Riordan, A. T. Stebbins,
Supt. Fayette Cook, A. Harrington, S. B. Clark,
G. Hargesheimer, M. R. Wood, Hon. D. A.
Morrison, C. H. Heffron and
Rev. W. C. Rice. Subcommittees were
appointed and the relief work was pushed
energetically. Rommell’s hall was made a
hospital and Dr. D. M.
Berkman was a most efficient hospital
steward and had control of all nurses and
hospital supplies. Many of the injured were
taken care of by relatives or friends, but there
were thirty-four patients in the hospital. There
was a volunteer force of physicians and lady
nurses. Tables were set in
Olds & Fishback’s
store for feeding the destitute, and beds and
cots were provided for the homeless.
Twenty-six persons were killed outright in
the wreck of North Rochester. The names of those
identified were John M.
Cole, Mrs. McQuillen, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Maria
Zierath, August Zierath, Mr. Osborne
and infant daughter,
Mrs. Fred Clough, Mrs. D. Wetherby, Jacob Hetzel,
William Higgins, Mrs. Quick and
child, Miss Mahala
McCormick, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Schultz, Mrs.
Charles Rothke. Four bodies were not
identified, two persons were missing and three
bodies were carried away by friends and the
names not ascertained.
John M. Cole was proprietor of the
mill in Lower town; a man prominent in business
and highly esteemed. His dead body was found in
the street between the mill and his residence.
He had apparently left the mill to go home and
was killed by the wind.
Following are the names of forty-one known to
have been injured and there were many others not
reported: Mrs. Osborne,
injured on chest, eye, legs and arm;
Mrs. Ole H. Rudh, cut arm and face;
Ole H. Rudh, head cut, back hurt;
Otto Rudh, head and arm badly hurt;
Anna Zierath,
head badly cut, body bruised;
Nina Hanson, head cut, face cut, hip
bruised; D. D. Wrought,
head badly bruised;
Nels Hanson,
head and leg cut;
Mrs. Hanson, head, shoulder. back
and spine cut; Mrs. W.
R. Wrought, back and shoulder and
inwardly hurt; Mrs. C.
Manley, arm, side, shoulder and head
bruised; Lillie
Osborne, head, back and spine hurt;
M. Sweeney, legs and head cut;
Dan O’Brien, arm broken, shoulder and
head cut; George
Hanson, spine, head and breast hurt;
William Leach,
head, legs and arm hurt;
D. Wetherby,
cut in side, head and arm and back hurt;
O. H. Hawkins,
head and shoulder hurt;
Charles Quick,
cut in leg;
Gertie Quick, cut in head and side;
Bernhart Quick, face and feet cut;
Herman Quick, arms, leg and face cut;
Armenia Quick,
side hurt;
Arthur Quick, hips badly bruised;
Frank Quick,
head cut; Willie
Hanson, arm broken, eye and head cut;
John Hong,
shoulder and head cut;
John Shanrock, shoulder hurt;
Willie Reick, arm and leg broken and
head cut; Frank
Schultz, head cut and finger broken;
Charles Hagadorn, cut in head;
Fred Clough
and child, Miss Sarah
Johnston. Charles Jackson, Mrs. Young,
hurt internally.
Dr. Eaton, hurt in back;
Lewis Posz, leg broken;
Ed Chapman, wife and mother badly
injured.
Mrs. McMasters, Mrs.
Wetherby, Mr. Hanson, Mrs. Seth Gordy
and Charles
Quick died at the hospital.
On Thursday afternoon there was a public
funeral of ten bodies. A cortege proceeded from
Cook’s Hotel
to Oakwood cemetery, and Fifth street from
Broadway to the cemetery was literally jammed
with people and teams. The interment ceremonies
were very simple. All day Thursday people from
abroad poured into the city to view the ghastly
sights.
The relief committee, assisted 233 families
and 101 men. They built fifty-one houses and
fifteen were built by individuals. The committee
assisted 106 families in rebuilding; seventy-two
in Rochester and thirty-one in the country, and
aided sixty-nine in repairing houses. More than
two hundred and twenty-five families were
furnished with more or less bedding and 570
persons were clothed.
Relief from every direction, far and near,
was prompt and abundant. The citizens of
Rochester and of all parts of the county
contributed liberally in cash, food and articles
of necessity, and from hundreds of communities
and individuals in this and other states amounts
ranging from $10,000 by Chicago, to 25 cents and
50 cents each by individuals, were sent in. It
is impracticable to specify the separate
benefactions, but among the largest were $5,000
each by St. Paul and Minneapolis: the latter
city sent fourteen carloads of lumber; Winona
sent $3,000. St. Cloud $3,400 and Stillwater
$1,000. The largest individual contributions
were $1,000 by Hon. W.
D. Washburn of Minneapolis, and $300
by G. W. Steuke,
of St. Peter. The relief committee, in their
report made after three months’ service, stated
the total amount received in cash as $69,577.25
and lumber, furniture, coal and provisions
$5,716.60 in all $75,293.85. There were,
besides, liberal responses throughout the
country to the appeals of the churches and
various societies for contributions, which were
dispensed by them among their own people. It was
a grand outpouring of benevolence.
There were many wonderful freaks of the wind
in the scattering of property; wagons were
lodged in trees yards away; buildings were torn
to pieces and scattered in every way, and in
many cases blown clear out of sight; persons
were blown rods away and killed. An oak board
two and a half inches wide was driven through a
poplar tree four and a half inches in diameter.
A book belonging to J.
G. Van Frank from Kasson, was picked
up a mile beyond Elgin, a distance of about
thirty miles. A hundred-dollar certificate of
deposit from the house of
Ole H. Rudh in
North Rochester, was picked up more than three
months later at Humbird, Wisconsin, 110 miles
away, on an air line. It had been enclosed in a
leather pocketbook, which was in a locked tin
box, but when found the certificate was by
itself and unmutilated, having apparently been
blown out of the box and out of the pocketbook.
Of the contributions for relief the most
liberal in proportion to the size and
circumstances of the community was probably that
of St. Cloud, $3,700. Three years later, in
April, 1886,
St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids were
struck by a cyclone, and Rochester, with a
commendably good memory, contributed to their
relief $3,626.
History of Olmsted County, Minnesota by
Joseph A., Leonard; Chicago: Goodspeed
Historical Association, 1910, pages 140-150
Search for your ancestors in this book at
ancestry.com.
The tornado which struck Rochester on August
21, 1883, (at 6:36PM) killed 37 and injured many
others. This was a large factor in the
subsequent development of the Mayo Clinic.
Minnesota Tornado History and Statistics
1883 Rochester
Tornado was an F5 (estimated) tornado that hit
Rochester, Minnesota on August 21, 1883.
Although it was one in a series of tornadoes
that hit Southeast Minnesota that day, it caused
at least 37 deaths and over 200 injuries, and
was the impetus for the creation of the Mayo
Clinic.
1883_Rochester_Tornado from wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
View photos of the Rochester Tornado from
the Minnesota Historical Society
>> Go to
page 1,
2,
3
 Search
for more information on the Rochester Tornado
and other disasters in the Historic
Newspapers Collection. The number of
newspapers on line has recently doubled - search
over 1000 different newspapers. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
Search for ancestors in
Rochester, MN among billions of names at ancestry.com. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
Minnesota Census
1835-90
Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
|
