Grinnell Cyclone Anniversay - 1903

GRINNELL, HOWE, SHULTZ, SCOTT

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 5/20/2024 at 09:11:20

A NOTABLE ANNIVERSARY.

Yesterday, June 17, was the anniversary of the great cyclone that wrought such wreck and ruin in Mt. Pleasant twenty-one years ago. The storm originated in the western part of the state, destroying the town of Grinnell in its pathway, where nearly one hundred people were killed outright, and many others injured. The storm struck this city a little after 11 o’clock the same night, and fairly wrecked the town. The Baptist church was unroofed, the Methodist church steeple fell directly across the street, south, crushing a building in its fall, the east front of Howe’s Academy was blown down, Shultz’s Manufactory was leveled with the earth, many other public and private residences were partially destroyed, the city park was ruined, and the streets were rendered almost impassable by fallen trees and other obstructions. Happily, there was no long list of dead and injured as surely would have been the case, if the storm had taken place in the day time, when the streets would have been thronged with people. Only one person was killed, Mr. Shade Scott, who lived about a mile north of town, at the end of Scott’s Lane. He was struck on the head by a flying stick of timber while assisting his aged mother to a place of safety.

Let us all devoutly hope that we shall never again have to record the visitation of such a storm in the history of Mt. Pleasant.

(“Mount Pleasant Journal”, Friday, June 19, 1903, page 1)