Reshaping the Tornado Belt: The June 16, 1887, Grand Forks/East Grand Forks Tornado

Even the United States Signal Service believed there was a northern limit for tornadoes in the United States. The frontier towns of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks were located about seventy-five miles north of Fargo, which was thought to be at the northern tip of the “Tornado Belt.” Leaders of each town proudly claimed that their communities did not have to worry about the destructive power of tornadoes.

The tornado of 1887 changed everything. Reshaping the Tornado Belt discusses:

– How Grand Forks and East Grand Forks evolved – What happened when country schoolhouses were blown across the prairie with teachers and students trapped inside – What the two shattered towns had to do in the aftermath of the tornado to rebuild their communities – Eyewitness accounts of the tornado as it traveled twenty miles

Full of maps and figures and painstakingly researched by three weather professionals, Reshaping the Tornado Belt tells an important story about how a horrific tornado challenged and reshaped two communities and changed how the world looks at tornadoes.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Grand Forks Weather Observer’s Account of June 16, 1887

“A destructive wind and deluging rain passed over this place from west to east and of twenty-five minutes duration. The day opened cloudy and sultry, with a light south wind. Heavy dark clouds were observed at 2 p.m., accumulating in the W and SW, and appeared to remain stationary, gradually increasing in density. At 2:35 p.m. the wind was increasing in force from the NE, at which time the temperature dropped suddenly 8 degrees or 9 degrees and a number of whitish clouds were moving swiftly from NE, centering in the W and SW, all forming a dark, heavy mass of clouds, reaching nearly to the zenith.

At 3 p.m. the wind was blowing a gale from the NW, at which it commenced to Hail, the stones being of a peculiar shape and some measuring from three to four inches in circumference. Hail fell only for about 20 seconds. At 3:20 p.m. the wind reached a maximum velocity of about 75 or 80 miles per hour, blowing several houses into pieces, unroofing quite a number of others and moved some from their foundations.

Six miles north of here, a passenger train consisting of two coaches, one baggage car and a smoker, was blown from the track nearly fifty feet and rolled one of the coaches over twice. The engine and front tender wheels remained on the track while the rear tender wheels were off. None of the passengers were killed, but six or seven were severely injured, and seven or eight slightly so. The train at the time was running at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles per hour.

The west wing of the University of North Dakota was blown to pieces damaging it to the extent of about $10,000. Next were the fairgrounds and society buildings, which were laid waste; damage to buildings and grounds about $6,000. Several dwellings in the city were moved from ten to fifteen feet from their foundations. One two-story wooden building, in which were three women and two children, was torn to pieces, one woman and a girl about twelve years of age being instantly killed.

The storm passed into East Grand Forks in Minnesota, where several buildings were blown down, one man killed, and several severely hurt. The destructive force of the storm was over two miles wide and about twenty long. Pieces of planks and scantling were driven into the ground over three feet, and in a few cases boards were forced through buildings. Those who had cellars got into them on the first approach of the storm, and in two cases where people occupied them, the houses were moved from their foundations over twenty-five feet, leaving those in the cellars exposed to the storm but uninjured.

After the storm had passed, the streets were strewn with tin roofs, lumber, parts of buildings, &c. A large saw-mill, owned by T. B. Walker, was damaged, the tall chimneys being blown off. The damage to the building, machinery and lumber was over $5,000. Several thousand dollars damage was done to the Riverside park; large trees were uprooted, and others broken off about ten feet above the ground, showing evidences of a terrific storm. The total damages to Grand Forks and vicinity is estimated at about $60,000, two people killed, and about 20 or 25 more or less injured” (Minnesota Signal Service, 1887).

Chapter Two

Early Maps and Directories of Grand Forks/ East Grand Forks

Frontier settlements in the Northern Plains were usually established in conjunction with new transportation routes. Grand Forks, Dakota Territory, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, were no exception. Both towns were located at the intersection of the Red River of the North and the Red Lake River, between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The Red River, via the Minnesota River, was one way people could travel between St. Paul and Winnipeg. The Red and Red Lake Rivers also provided a water and food source for the early inhabitants of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. The trees that lined the banks of the rivers provided the only wood for miles around, which could be used as fuel or building material. Clearly, the early residents of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks relied heavily on the two rivers.

The fact that the Red River was so important to the development of Grand Forks is also evident in how the original town was laid out. Figure 2 shows an early map of Grand Forks, with the arrows denoting the boundaries of the original town site. The Red River formed the eastern boundary, Ione Avenue the northern boundary, Sixth Street the western boundary, and Division Avenue the southern boundary. The streets of the original town site paralleled the Red River, while the avenues were perpendicular to it. As the city expanded in later years, and the streets were laid out from north to south and the avenues from east to west, it became a challenge to tie in the newer city additions to the original town site.

The main east-west avenues in Grand Forks, from north to south, were Griggs, Hill, Ione, Dakota, Cheyenne, Selkirk, International, Alpha, DeMers, Kittson, Bruce, Division, Gertrude, Franklin, and Minnesota. Six of these avenue names (Dakota, Cheyenne, Selkirk, International, Alpha, and Minnesota) were taken directly from the names of steamboats which ran on the Red River. Griggs Avenue was named for Alexander Griggs, who is often referred to as the “Father of Grand Forks.” Hill Avenue was named for James J. Hill, who was best known for bringing the first railroad (St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba) to Grand Forks. James J. Hill had also teamed up with Alexander Griggs to form Hill, Griggs and Company, which built a steamboat, a saw mill, and a store in early Grand Forks (GFDH, 1903a). Ione Avenue got its name from the wife of Alexander Griggs, whose middle name was Ione (GFDH, 1903a).

Today, DeMers Avenue is probably the most widely recognized name from this original group of avenues. Frank DeMers was in charge of the Red River Transportation Company’s interests at Fisher’s Landing, Minnesota (GFDH, 1938). DeMers was also one of two men from Fisher’s Landing who platted the town site of Fisher on higher ground after the 1877 Red Lake River flood had virtually wiped out Fisher’s Landing.

Kittson Avenue was named for Norman W. Kittson, the partner of James J. Hill in the Red River Transportation Company (Sylvester, 1988). Kittson had also been instrumental in establishing the boat yard in Grand Forks in 1872, which was headed by D. P. Reeves (History of the Red River Valley, 1909). This boatyard was located on the Grand Forks side of the Red River, between Dakota and Ione avenues.

Bruce Avenue was named in honor of the original surveyor of Grand Forks, Hector Bruce. Bruce also represented eastern Dakota Territory in the Territorial House of Representatives during the 1874–75 session (Kingsbury, 1915). Division Avenue was the southernmost avenue on the original city plat map. Division Avenue, therefore, divided the original town site from the newer city additions to the south. On May 30, 1878, Colonel Frank Viets filed the first addition to Grand Forks, which was called the Viets Addition (GFDH, 1885f). Viets named Gertrude Avenue after his daughter and Franklin Avenue after himself (Rolczynski, 1991). Many of the adjacent avenues across the Red River in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, followed the Grand Forks naming convention. However, most of the original businesses in East Grand Forks were located along Sibley Street, which bordered the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. This street was named in honor of Henry H. Sibley, the first governor of Minnesota.

To determine the finer scale details of early Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, namely where homes and businesses were located, other city maps, city directories, and census information were crucial. Actual city maps from the 1880s were few and far between. The best city maps that remain today were drawn by the Sanborn Map Company for insurance purposes, and were located at the Department of Special Collections in the Chester Fritz Library at the University of North Dakota (CFL/UND). The Sanborn Map Company made city maps for Grand Forks/East Grand Forks in July 1884 and August 1888. These two sets of maps provided a good perspective of the two towns, as one was made prior to the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks tornado, and one was made after it.

Since the Sanborn maps were used for insurance purposes, they provided a fair amount of construction detail in addition to showing where buildings were located. Both the 1884 and 1888 Sanborn maps of Grand Forks/East Grand Forks contained one large scale city map. Figure 3 shows the 1884 city wide Sanborn map of Grand Forks/East Grand Forks.

This map shows the location of the major geographic and transportation features, and more importantly, all the streets and avenues. In addition, city additions were labeled and city blocks were given a number. Some of the more important buildings were labeled on this map, which included railroad structures, city buildings, and hotels. Figure 4 shows the author’s version of the 1884 Sanborn map, with various buildings and railroads around the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks area labeled. Each of these labels will be identified in later text.

Figure 5 shows a smaller, but higher resolution, section of Figure 3, centered on the northwest edge of Grand Forks, which happens to include St. Michael’s Catholic Church. In Figure 5, there is a large number “7” in the right center of the map. Just to the top left of the “7” is a cross-hatched rectangle with the letters “RC CH” to the right of it. This is an abbreviation for the Roman Catholic Church, which stood at the southeast corner of Sixth Street North and Ione Avenue. To the left of the church is another cross-hatched shape near the railroad track, labeled “ELEV.” This is an abbreviation for a grain elevator. The number “7” in Figure 5 actually stands for sheet 7 of the 1884 Sanborn maps, where a much finer scale map of the area around the Roman Catholic Church would be found.

The finer scale maps, like those on sheet 7, show much greater detail but only cover an area of several city blocks. On these maps, each individual building or structure was shown exactly where it appeared in July 1884 or August 1888, down to the outhouses. These finer scale maps also showed individual building construction details, such as whether the buildings were made of wood, brick, or brick veneer. These construction details were highly important for completing the storm damage assessments to determine the strength of the tornado. As an example of how much detail these finer scale maps provided, see Figure 6, which shows St. Michael’s Catholic Church (16 in Figure 4). Descriptions on the drawing say how the church was heated (hot air furnace) and its construction type (brick veneered). The drawing also gives an excellent visual representation of the outer shape of the church. Although not shown in this example, its orientation on the city block was also given.

Despite the great amount of detail on the Sanborn maps, they only provided a one-dimensional perspective of Grand Forks/East Grand Forks. It was important to supplement the Sanborn maps with other types of city maps, to get the best idea of what the cities looked like in the 1880s. Artists see their subjects through their own eyes, so other city maps could provide a different perspective of the Sanborn maps or furnish additional details. Many of the early maps or perspectives of American cities were hand drawn by surveyors or traveling artists. These 1880s artists found their work to be in high demand, as “Americans hungered for images of their country” (Reps, 1984). Artwork that depicted a city could be used for decorating a home or for advertising a town in other sections of the country. “Before their popularity faded, nearly five thousand separate prints of this type came from printers and publishers located in a dozen or so centers of the trade” (Reps, 1984).

Panoramic (city view) maps were drawn by very skilled traveling artists, who often “displayed their subjects [cities] from a slightly elevated position [bird’s-eye view], thus creating a greater illusion of depth and providing some information about the appearance of buildings in the town beyond those visible only from the ground” (Reps, 1984). These hand-drawn maps were then taken to a publisher, who then reproduced multiple copies of the original map using a lithographic process. This is why these panoramic maps are often called “lithographs.” “Before the fad for city views like these ended in the early decades of the twentieth century, resident or itinerant artists had produced at least one view each of as many as 2,400 places” (Reps, 1984). Grand Forks was lucky enough to be included in this total.

One of the most famous and prolific city view artists, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler, came to Grand Forks to sketch a city perspective in the spring of 1880. “Although Fowler began his independent view-making career in 1876 with two views of New Jersey communities and two of towns not far away on Long Island, he resumed his more peripatetic [traveling] life during 1877–1880 with sketching trips to New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Manitoba” (Reps, 1984). On his 1880 trip through the Northern Plains, Fowler also drew panoramic views of Fargo, Dakota Territory, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. A copy of Fowler’s Grand Forks city view is located at the Department of Special Collections at the CFL/UND, and is shown in Figures 7a and 7b. Because the original drawing was quite large, the images in Figures 7a and 7b are reductions and show less detail.

Confirmation of Fowler’s drawing of Grand Forks was found in the May 27, 1880 edition of the Grand Forks Herald, which wrote: “We have had the pleasure of examining a beautiful India ink sketch of Grand Forks, drawn by T. M. Fowler. The junction of the rivers as shown in the foreground and a number of steamboats scattered along the Red River, gives a lively and picturesque effect. The railroad bridge shows conspicuously in the foreground, upon which a train of cars are awaiting for the draw to close. The drawing is made in sufficiently large scale, so that every house is readily recognized. We understand that this sketch is to be lithographed in fine style, if Mr. Fowler secure[s] sufficient encouragement [orders], which we believe he will readily do” (GFH, 1880d). The Grand Forks Herald had the privilege of seeing the original Fowler drawing, the mass produced lithograph likely arrived several months later.

Looking at Figures 7a and 7b, the Red River was given a dominant role in the drawing, running from left to right across the bottom of the image. Four steamboats were prominently displayed on the Red River, one in the center and three on the right side. Several flatboats, or barges, were also visible around the three steamboats on the right side of the drawing. The Red Lake River intersects with the Red River in the lower left side of the drawing. The St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad (E), the only railroad in Grand Forks/East Grand Forks in 1880, also showed up prominently in Fowler’s artwork. The railroad crosses the Red River in the lower right side of the image and exits to the west in the upper-left-hand corner. The railroad bridge was the only permanent bridge across the Red River, and its western half could be opened to allow steamboats to pass through. Three trains were visible in the image, one waiting to cross the Red River bridge, another near the depot (136) and elevators, and the third along the East Grand Forks side track down to the Red River. At this point, goods could be exchanged between these two different modes of transportation.

Twenty-one city buildings or other features were specifically numbered and identified on Fowler’s 1880 panoramic map (Figures 7a and 7b). One of these numbers, a “7,” appeared on the street in front of the Episcopal Church (22). Fowler identified number 7 as the Episcopal Church in the space below the drawing (not shown here). However, the Episcopal Church was still not completed in 1880 (neither was Central School (89), so Fowler had added it to the drawing in anticipation of it being completed in short order. Therefore, this panoramic map was not entirely accurate. To be specifically identified on a city view, a business or church had to order a certain number of copies of the lithograph, or pay a fee for this “advertisement” (Reps, 1984). This shows how popular panoramic maps were in 1880, that in a town the size of Grand Forks, twenty-one separate features were identified. Some of the other prominent buildings, including the Griggs House (9), courthouse (G), Presbyterian Church (24), Viets’s Mill (M), Methodist Episcopal Church (D), and Central School (89) also appear in the drawing. In the upper left corner of the drawing, Belmont Road becomes the road to Fargo, while in the upper right corner, the road extending to the west is the road to Fort Totten.

(Continues…)

Excerpted from Reshaping the Tornado Beltby Vincent Godon Nancy Godon Kelly Kramlich Copyright © 2011 by Vincent Godon, Nancy Godon, and Kelly Kramlich. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ iUniverse (January 5, 2011)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 408 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1450244289
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1450244282
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.91 x 9 inches