Fred Townsend
Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa
Thursday, September l8, l924
A regular cyclone which started just west of the fairgrounds last Thursday evening, did a lot of damage, yet everybody is thankful that no one was seriously injured. The day had been very sultry and shortly before five o'clock, clouds were boiling in the west and northwest. There were two clouds, one apparently coming from the southwest and other from the northwest, and they met and formed a regular twister. The clouds did not look very bad until just before the storm broke, and no one expected anything but a shower of rain.
People were just leaving the grandstand at the fair grounds when the storm broke, nearly everyone being out, but quite a number went back in, as it was supposed to be strong enough to withstand any storm, having stood through the heavy storms of the past five years without being damaged. When the cyclone broke against the grandstand it picked up the west section of the heavy roof, 24x300 feet, and tore it loose from the grandstand, breaking it into three pieces, one section going across the race track northeast to the center of the quarter stretch. While two other pieces were carried three or four hundred yards to the southeast and smashed to pieces. Timber 8x12 were broken square off. This was the only building damaged at the fairgrounds, but the cattle and horse tents which were used to care for the overflow from the barns, were blown down, but none of the stock was injured.
The twister seemed to rise in the air and then dip down again, traveling in a northeasterly direction. It was seen to strike in C.W. HOFFMAN's pasture, just grazed the tenement house on the east side of the farm, tearing off a part of the roof. Then it went east to the farm of ROY BIDDISON, where it missed the house and barn but picked up a chicken house 40 feet long and smashed it. MR. BIDDISON had 700 chickens in the building and a number were killed. Part of this chicken house was found on the CARPER farm a half mile away. On the ALBERT BIDDISON north farm, several haystacks were town to pieces.
>From here the twister turned to the north, blowing down a number of trees, at the farms of J.F. CAULFIELD and IVAN REED, and doing some little damage to small buildings. Then it rose and dropped down at the farms of FRANK GARBER and G.A. LONG. MR. GARBER had the west end of his barn smashed in, and several large trees were blown down. Just across the road north on the LONG farm occupied by GARFIELD BUNCH, the most damage was done, as the orchard was practically destroyed, several big trees twisted off, his windmill torn to pieces, and the roofs of the barn and house stripped of shingles. Then on east at the FRED BARRETT farm it twisted off some trees in his orchard, and in the big timber north of the house seems to have spent its force, twisting off a large number of big trees. In the corn field on this farm a lot of corn was torn from the stalks, MR. BARRETT saying there was at least ten bushels of ears to the acre lying on the ground.
At the fine home of SHERM RUMLEY just south of the fair grounds, a big tree was blown down falling on the kitchen, demolishing the chimney and breaking in the roof. CLAUDE STILES was working in the house, and he saye he thought the whole house was crushed in, and he got out in a hurry. At C.W. HOFFMAN's home across the road to the east, a big elm tree was twisted off, and several big apple trees demolished in his orchard. There was no further damage south until it struck MICK NAUMAN's house where it tore off the chimneys and blew down some trees, Church Street south of the Catholic Church was blocked by falling trees, electric light and telephone wires, several poles being broken off, but the wires were soon removed so that traffic could get through the street.
A big tree in front of FRED TOWNSEND's house, one at the home of MRS. I.T. EVANS and another at the home of CHARLES JOHNSTON were blown down, and all over north Leon limbs were broken off. The storm was not near so severe in the south part of town, as people there did not even close their windows.
The rain which followed for a couple of hours made the roads pretty slippery and many people remained in Leon over night. The road from the fair grounds was lined with cars for several hours. Just when the storm broke, two cars, one from Grand River and the other from near Linevlle, crashed together head on south of C.W. HOFFMAN's home, and both were damaged, but none of the occupants were injured.
Out at the fair grounds where there were over 4,000 autos on the ground, many of the cars were moved with brakes set, and several were slightly damaged by being blown against adjoining cars.
The electric current was immediately broken, and it was a good thing, as wires were blown down all over the fair grounds and scores would have been injured had the current been on. Both the electric company and telephone company had quite a loss from broken wires and poles. The lights in the business district were on soon after the storm passed, and those in the south part of town were turned on later in the evening, but the north section had no current until nearly noon the next day, as the linemen had an immense amount of work to do in repairing the broken wires and poles.
Out near the FRANK GARBER farm we saw a locust tree probably eight to ten inches in diameter twisted square off and splintered about eight feet from the ground, which shows the terrific force of the wind while trees within a few feet were not damaged.
Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
"With permission from the Leon Journal Reporter"
September 26, 2002