OCR Text |
Show Fergus Falls Business Blocks Are Leveled by Cyclonic Fury; Fires Add to the Horrors. Hundreds of Homes Are Blown Down; Transcontinental Trans-continental Train Is Swept From Tracks. FARGO, N. D., June 23. Re- ' ports of a death list ranging from 300 to 400, duo to a tornado that struck Fergus Falls., Minn., about ssventy miles southeast of here Cunday afternoon, were received th morning. Advices to the Northwest . Telephone company here say that a lineman working out of Fergus Falls reported that three hundred persons lost their lives, while information from Ev-ansville, Ev-ansville, 35 miles southeast of Fergus Falls, was that half the town had been blown away and that between 300 and 400 were dead. A relief train passed through Evansville early this morning. ST. PAUL, June 212 Destruction of the central section of Fergus Falls, Minn., by a tornado this evening, ivith a loss of perhaps 200 lives, was reported re-ported tonight by railroad officials and dispatches from near-by towns. The storm struck the city about seven o'clock destroying, among other buildings, the Grand Hotel, ill which it is reported 75 persons were trapped when the structure collapsed. The telephone operator at Wahpeton, a town on tho North Dakota lino, about 50 miles west of Fergus Falls, said reports there placed the loss of life in Fergus Falls at 200. Seven hundred hou3es and other buildings were destroyed de-stroyed by the storm or by a fire -which followed. Great Northern train No. 1, the Oriental Ori-ental Limited, westbound, from Chicago Chi-cago to Seattle, was blown from the track, about six miles west of Fergus Falls, but early reports said only one passenger was injured. Brainanl, Minn., residents saw the storm sweepiug in a northeasterly direction, di-rection, passing over several towns (Continued on Page 12, Column 3.) SCORES TRAPPED l FALLING STRUCTURES (Continued from Page One.) after its destruction .at Fergus Falls, but no other towns in that vicinity reported serious damages. Train jN"o. 1 was traveling between 30 and 40 miles an hour when the twister struck the baggage car behind the tender when about six miles west of Fergus Falls, throwing seven of the 11 cars from the rails. The coaches were deposited along the roadbed, all in an upright position. More than 200 passengers were on the train. For the past two days several sections sec-tions of the state have reported severe se-vere electrical and rain storms and the upper Minnesota river valley today was visited by a flood which caused half a million dollars' damage to towns along the river. Shortly before midnight the storm struck the Twin cities. Eailroad and commercial telegraph wires were prostrated pros-trated all through the section adjoining adjoin-ing the Dakota line. Eailroad men on trains returning from the storm-swept section placed the loss of life in Fergus Falls at around 200 and said almost the entire city had been swept away. They confirmed con-firmed the destruction of the Great Northern railroad depot there with heavy toll. A. Larson, a real estate man at Fergus Falls, gave first-hand details of the tornado to Mayor J. D. Dols, of Elbow Lake, Minn., making the trip there by automobile after the storm. A severe electrical storm and burst of rain broke the Sunday peace of Fergus Falls, Larson said, and later the full force of the storm swept up the principal business street, demolishing every building for three blocks and scores of residences on adjacent streets. Larson helped recover ten bodies from the ruins, he said, before leaving for Elbow Lake for relief. Forty persons were buried in tho ruins of the Grand Hotel, Larson said, and many more in the Great Northern depot. The state hospital on the north side of town and two private hospitals were unharmed, Larson said. |