Hoard Township Tragedies

A Frightful Storm--Colby Phonograph, 8 June 1905.

COLBY IS BOMBARDED WITH HAIL, WIND AND RAIN SATURDAY AT 8:27, p.m.

CURTISS SUFFERS TERRIBLE DAMAGE

Railroads Suffer  Heavily Throughout the State and Traffic is Practically at a Standstill.

The heaviest storm that ever passed over this section of the country struck our little city at about 8:27 p.m., Saturday evening.  The first part of the storm was hail, or we might say chunks of ice, accompanied with wind enough to drive them through every unprotected pane of glass in the city.

Thirteen of the handsome windows in the new St. Mary's Church, those on the north and west sides of the other three churches, the public halls and in fact every building in Colby, with one or two exceptions, were badly shattered.

Very little damage was done by the wind here.  Lueloff & Son's combined buggy and woodshed, and the machinery building back of Dix's Meat Market being the only buildings actually blown down.  Our neighbors in Curtiss, Unity and the adjoining townships were less fortunate, the wind doing the principal damage.

At Curtiss nearly every business place and residence was damaged, only a very few escaping the fury of the wind.  Some were entirely wrecked while others were uprooted.  The church steeple was torn off and carried a hundred feet or more from the church.  Mrs. Rudolph (Wilhelmina) Bartels was instantly killed and her husband seriously injured being caught in the wreckage of their home.  The damage in the little village is estimated at from $35,000 to $50,000.

At Unity, the Methodist church, the Lutheran Church and the I.O.O.F. hall were wrecked and other buildings were more or less damaged.

It would take a full page to describe the havoc wrought in the townships touched by the storm.  Some farm residences, many barns, windmills and out-building were leveled to the ground and the damage to crops cannot be estimated.

The flood feature of the storm was general all over the state and at this time of writing, railroad traffic is practically at a standstill.  The Central had 800 feed of track washed out between Stevens Point and Junction City, and we had a real mail famine from Monday until Thursday afternoon.  There were other washouts north and west of us.

***Colby Phonograph, July 13, 1905

Arne E. Olson of Curtiss was in the Colby on Wednesday for business.  Arne says he lost three barns in the late storm and now has ten men at work, some making hay and the others making barns to put the hay in.