Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2016 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== The Evening Argus Monday, November 13, 1911 DEATH AND DISASTER IN WAKE OF WIND TWO PERSONS KILLED AND MANY INJURED BY FALLING WALLS AND FLYING MISSLES Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Worth of Property Destroyed, and Much Irre- parable Damage Done. --------------------- TORNADO LATE SATURDAY NIGHT LEFT PATH OF DESOLA- TION THROUGH THE CITY - TORRENT OF RAIN FOLLOWED, ADDING TO DAMAGE. Estey Manufacturing Plant a Total Wreck - Woodard's Furniture and Owosso Manufacturing Co.'s Factories Badly Damaged - Residences, Business Places, Public Institutions Suffer Severely. ----------------------- THE DEAD Harry Corwin, laborer, aged 29. Mrs. Harry Corwin, his wife, aged 25. INJURED Miss Queen Robinson, 23, teacher, buried under mass of brick; three ribs fractured, back injured and body literally skinned. Mrs. John McClellan, bad gash on head. John McClellan, her husband, badly bruised. Mrs. Michael Byrnes, ill with appendicitis, condition made very precarious by leap from bed and fright. Misses Mabel and Lillian Kerwin, badly bruised; latter's toe broken. Andrew Drexler and John Himburg, hurled from buggy; Himburg's rib fractured. M. L. Parker, both hands badly cut by glass. Miss Rebekah Soloman, badly hurt about the legs and arms. John Polaski, stove moulder, face badly cut by glass. Martin Long, watchman at Estey factory; bad scalp wound. Mrs. B. E. Small, 68, wrist and hands cut; condition serious from shock. Miss Anna Small, forelady at casket factory, suffering from shock. Mrs. Charles Brown, badly bruised and suffering from shock. Mrs. Geo. H. Clark, Martin street forehead injured; badly shocked. Miss Mary Clark, aged 16; right forearm badly wrenched. Hiram Findley, a mass of bruises. Joe Walcott, farmer, leg badly bruised and chest and shoulder injured. P. D. White, 60, severely cut by broken glass. Frank Lewis, shoulder dislocated. Carle Theide, Martin street, foot badly lacerated by broken glass. Mrs. John Ham, Frederick street, in serious condition as result of the nervous shock. Roy Rentz, aged 12, face badly gashed. William Shurtz, age 12, lip cut. Miss Alta Johnson, teacher, cut about feet by broken glass. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The most destructive wind storm Owosso ever experienced swept over this city shortly after 11 o'clock Saturday night, and in the five minutes of its greatest fury left a wake from a quarter to a half mile wide of ruin, desolation and death. Two lives were lost, about 25 persons are known to have been injured, and one or two of the injured may be fatal. The property loss cannot be accurately estimated, but probably will exceed $500,000, with little or no storm insurance to compensate the losers. Mr. and Mrs. Harry Corwin, aged 29 and 28, respectively, are dead; Miss Queen Robinson, 23, a teacher in the kindergarten department of the public schools is seriously injured; 25 others are more or less seriously hurt. One furniture factory was completely wrecked, another badly damaged and scores of houses in the path of the storm twisted and wrecked, several being demolished and many others unroofed and partially torn down. Fully 260 men are out of work for an indefinate period; 50 families are either homeless or living at a great inconvenience in their wrecked houses. The cyclone passed through the center of the residential, business and church centers, traveling at a terrible rate. The direction taken was from the southwest to the northeast a path half a mile wide and two miles long being torn through the city. So badly did the churches fare in the storm that in only three of the 16, Catholic, Congregational and Church of Christ, could services be held Sunday. Hundreds of beautiful shade trees were torn up by the roots and flung, sometimes against houses, and again across streets, uplifting cement sidewalks (illegible). Several hundred telephone, telegraph and electric lighting poles were broken off, dropping their thousands of wires in a tangle in the streets, leaving the city in darkness and for many hours without communication with the outside world. Sewers were choked and pedestrians stumbled about the dark streets after the storm, sometimes in water to their knees. Trains and interurban cars were held up for nearly 12 hours after the storm and hundreds of people crowded telephone and telegraph offices, seeking to assure friends in other places that they were unharmed. Many persons, awakened by the fury of the storm, were compelled to escape in night apparel from under falling roofs, while a number were hurled from their beds and found themselves in the ruins or in their yards. The Path of the Storm The path of the storm extends diagonally across the city from southwest to the northeast and through the heart. The tornado was the culmination of a heavy wind from the southwest that had blown for several hours. Following the climax came a dropping temperature of fully 35 degrees to below the freezing point and a blizzard raged at intervals throughout Sunday. The tornado was extremely capricious. Some buildings directly in its path were smashed to pieces or badly damaged; others were un- scathed. The Congregational church escaped without damage, although the Salem church to the east, the Methodist church to the west and St. Johhannes and Christ Episcopal churches to the north were battered as was the Baptist church to the southwest. Crews of men worked all day Sunday, chopping up trees which lay in the streets and assisting neighbors whose homes were damaged. The Bell and Union telephone companies had big gangs of men and teams out all day striving to straighten out the tangled network of fallen wires and establish even a tentative communication both inside the city and over long-distance lines. The feet of pedestrians crunch over an almost continuous carpet of broken glass in the down-town districts, and in a dozen stores canvas and rude lumber appear in lieu of window glass. Thousands of people of the city and from nearby cities and towns thronged the streets during the daylight hours braving the first cold weather and snow of the season to view the havoc wrought. On every hand, in the affected district, yesterday, could be seen little piles of household goods piled in the street, while house- holders, assisted by willing neighbors, dug in the ruins of their homes to rescue what they could. Broken lumber, bricks, parts of porches and nearly every other kind of debris litter the streets and sidewalks. Wreck of the Estey Factory. The plant of the Estey Manufacturing Co., makers of furniture, is a pile of broken timbers 20 feet high. The loss will reach $150,000 and 110 men will be idle indefinitely. C. E. RIGLEY, Sr., president of the concern, said Sunday that he was hopeful of rebuilding, but could announce no definite plans for several days until the company goes over its books and accounts. There was no cyclone insurance on the plant and it will be a total loss. The Estey company employed 110 men. The factory was a frame structure, three stories high and basement 340 x 80 feet, besides dry sheds. The company, consisting of CHARLES E. Jr. and JAMES RIGLEY, has been doing an immense business and recently completed an addition to the factory, which was built in 1897 in 57 hours as an auxilary to a larger factory of the company in which eastern capital was largely interested. Factory A was destroyed by fire about six years ago and the outsiders then sold their interests in the plant destroyed Saturday night to the Owosso stockholders. The wind completely demolished the building above the first story and the loss will reach $150,000 with no storm insurance. The owners will probably rebuild. After frolicking with a large number of freight cars which were lifted from the track and carried across the Grand Trunk right of way, the tornado swept on to the brick factory of the Woodard Furniture company. A recently completed addition of brick on the east end, four stories high and about 50 x 80 feet in dimensions, was wrecked and a lot of valuable furniture stored therein was ruined. A part of the roof at the west end of the factory was also badly damaged. The loss on machinery and finished stock will amount to $30,000, according to Secretary JOSEPH C. OSBURN, of the company. One hundred and fifty men may be thrown out of employment until the plant can be repaired. School House and Churches Damaged. The Bryant school, at Cedar and Stewart streets, in the fourth ward, was damaged to the extent of about $400. The damages to churches of the city are Salems Lutheran, $1,500; Baptist, $1,000; First Methodist Episcopal $4,500; Christ Episcopal and St. Pauls Roman Catholic, several hundred dollars, and others in amounts ranging from a few dollars up to several hundred. Salems Evangelical Lutheran of which Rev. THEODORE H. HAHN is the pastor, has sustained a heavy loss. The north front one-fourth of the roof was torn off, and the steeple, which was 150 feet high, the tallest in the city, was hurled into the street. The loss will be at least $1,500. The Baptist church was a heavy sufferer. Whole sections of the roof are laid bare, where the slates were picked cleanly off, and two large memorial windows, each about 15 feet across and 25 feet high, were blown in. These windows were at the gallery level, one on the south side and one on the west side of the edifice. The church interior was deluged by the cloudburst which accompanied the cyclone, and the loss will reach $5,000. The First M. E. church, one block north of the Baptist church, and a block west of Salems, was also badly treated by the storm. It was partially unroofed and several windows blown out. This church was recently repaired, about $7,000 being spent upon it, and the loss will reach half that sum. Christ Episcopal church, two blocks north of Salems church, lost its steeple, and is probably damaged $500 ***** St. Paul's Roman Catholic church had several of its fine memorial windows broken. It escaped with the comparatively light loss of several hundred dollars. The new Christian church, a handsome brick structure, was just out- side the path of the whirlwind, and was not damaged. St. Johannes' Evangelical Lutheran church, which stands at the corner of Oliver and Washington streets, and which is one of the oldest edifices in the city, was so badly battered that the street in front of it was roped off. The steeple is out of the perpendicular quite noticeably, and may fall at any time. The value of this building is probably between $6,000 and $10,000. Heavy Losses to Corporations and Business Firms. The Bell and Union telephone companies and the Consumers' Power Co. are very heavy losers. Hundreds of poles all over the city are broken off and the wire apparently hopelessly tangled. It will require weeks of work before these breaks are repaired. The Consumers' Power Co, which is a branch of the Commonwealth Power Co., of Jackson, is in especially bad shape. It had been rebuilding its pole lines through- out the city and the work was nearly completed. The cost to each of the concerns named ***** will be up in the thousands. The City Steam Laundry was practically destroyed, with a loss of about $*,000, and no cyclone insurance. The place was one story, frame, and new machinery was being installed last week. The laundry will be rebuilt. The photograph studio belonging to J. A. HEADLEY between the laundry and the river was completely wrecked and slid partly down the bank into the stream. The loss will amount to $1,000. WILLIAM JUHL's cigar store, west of the laundry, and in part of MR. COREY's building, was twisted and shaken and windows, fixtures and stock broken and scattered. MR. JUHL's loss will reach $500 and that on the building will be $300 more. West Exchange street, in the business district between Water street on the west and Park street on the east presented a scene of desola- tion. The tall, heavily laden telephone poles were practically all broken off, and the wires depending from them festooned the street in eccentric tangles. The plate glass in two of the windows of the Union Transfer company on Exchange street were blown out. The whole front of the Monroe Implement Co., a frame building on Exchange street, was blown away, with a loss of about $1,800. On West Main street, from Cedar street east to Washington the storm scored heavily. The trolley wire was torn from its supports and hung low over the thoroughfare and in several places fallen trees blocked it. Part of the roof of the Estey or Woodard factory, about 250 to 300 yards away, was carried by the wind to the center of Main street near the Shiawassee street intersection. A section of roof from a house, which V. M. WHITE is building on South Howell street, just off Main, was carried 100 feet and deposited with a resounding crash on the roof of A. E. PALMER's residence on Main. This section of roof was about 15 or 20 feet, and weighed several hundred pounds. The MUEL*** Bros. brewery was considerably buffeted. One side of it [illegible portion] away and the building otherwise damaged, and hundreds of brick crashed into the street. The loss to the brewery will probably be $1,000. Plate glass windows were broken in the stores of the Owosso Gas Co., where about two dozen gas lamps were smashed; The Fair store on Exchange street, W. D. BURKE's store, in the Pythian temple, and FRANK BROOKS' store in West Owosso. A billboard formerly stood on the east side of the bridge, and on the south side of Main street. The whirlwind picked that up and sent it flying for 50 yards before it crashed through the big plate glass in the front of the Collseum roller rink, which is owned by Owosso lodge, Knights of Pythias; another in the Foster Co.'s store a few doors away, and several smaller windows in D. M. CHRISTIAN's store and in BYERLY's grocery store, most of the latter in the upper stories, were broken in. Other glasses at apparently the same angle and in the same exposed positions were not even cracked. The BE*KLEMAN & MULHALL lumber store house, near the Woodard factory, was unroofed and other- wise damaged, to the extent of $800. The Owosso Manufacturing Co., plant, in West Owosso, was partially unroofed and 75 square feet of the walls of the new addition which is being built torn down. The loss will reach several thousand dollars. [Note: the remainder of the article is mostly illegible.] ===========================================================================