USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 40
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operation. This was of incalculable value to the business men, as well as obviating the news question.
The only letter that we found in commendation of the railroad company was written on January 20th by twenty-four of the prominent citizens who were blockaded in the storm some four miles east of Manchester, just five days after the big snowstorm commenced and the first train had succeeded in reaching Independence, and at that early stage of the blockade they felt that their deliver- anee home justified an acknowledgment, so resolutions were passed extending unqualified thanks for the gentlemanly and courteous treatment accorded them by the conductor and engineer, also for the kindness shown them by the citizens of Manchester who upon being warned of their perilous situation four miles east of them came on horseback to their aid.
THE TELEPHONE
The introduction of the telephone into Independence was in May, 1880, when a temporary telephone line for the exhibition of the instrument had been estab- lished between Tabor's drug store and C. D. Jones' insurance office. "It works nicely and it now seems probable that a permanent system will be established in Independence," as several of the citizens had expressed a willingness to subscribe to the project. The charge for the use of each instrument was $36.00 per year. Kellogg & Holloway had the first paid line installed from Independence to their humber and coal yard at the B., C. R. & M. depot. The wire was stretched along on the tops of the houses and the erection of poles proved unnecessary, except in one or two instances.
The lloover mechanical telephone was used, but not proving satisfactory. was discarded and the Bell instrument was substituted, and a private line was established between their office and Oak Hall Grocery, and a line was established to the hospital. The office was located at Tabor's drug store.
This first system was not satisfactory and the phones were removed, with the exception of the one to the hospital, which had connection with Tabor's drug store.
In November, 1886, a city telephone exchange was reestablished, with about thirty subscribers. The central office was located in C. R. Wallace's drug store, where O'Brien's clothing store is now located. Here it remained until it was removed to its present quarters.
TELEPHONES
The first ordinance to be granted to a telephone company by the City of Independence was dated April 11, 1888, and was given to the lowa Union Telephone and Telegraph Company, to erect poles, wires and fixtures upon the streets and alleys of Independence.
The second ordinance was granted to the Wapsie Valley Telephone Com- pany, composed of F. Kelley, J. F. Elliott and W. P. Durham, of Troy Mills, Iowa, and was dated September 14, 1897.
On July 9, 1900, an ordinanee was granted to the County Telephone and Telegram System.
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The first company to operate in the city was the lowa Union Telephone and Telegraph Company, which company later became a co-part of the Bell Telephone System. Their office was in 1897 or 98 removed from the C. R. Wal- laee Drug Store on South Main Street to the floor of the Morse Block over Logan's Dry Goods Store. In 1897 the Wapsie Valley Telephone Company erected their plant and began business in competition to the Bell System and at this time the first farmer lines were introduced to the local office.
The contest reached its climax about the year 1909. At this time the rivalry became bitter; residents were using two telephones, one of each com- pany, which proved a great inconvenience and expense. Finally, a compro- mise was effected between the two companies, which resulted in a consolida- tion of both business offices, the Bell office being removed to the Corn Belt offiee over the O'Brien Dry Goods Store on South Main Street. and it is the popular understanding that this insured the local exchange business to the Wapsie Valley, or the Corn Belt Company, and all toll business was given to the Bell Company. This is the state of affairs at the present time. There are six exchange girls employed at the present time and the office is finely equipped with all modern appliances.
The first long distance connection which the City of Independence had with the outside world occurred in the spring of the year 1898. Local people were allowed to talk with their friends in distant states free of charge; and several calls were made to New York and San Francisco, Texas, Kansas and other points. A band concert held in New York City was enjoyed by many people in Independence.
The telephone business is one of the most vital and prosperous in the city, if number of subscribers and use of the phone is any criterion. Something over one thousand phones are on the local exchange and an average of 6,000 local ealls per day and on busy days 300 toll calls. But it is always a busy day in the Corn Belt offiee. Mrs. Emma Moore has been the efficient and aceom- modating toll operator for about fourteen years.
PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE WAPSIPINICON AND THE OLD DAM
CHAPTER XVI MISCELLANEOUS
CLIMATE-WINDSTORMS-BLIZZARDS-ACCIDENTS-RIVERS-FLOODS
CLIMATE
The weather of Buchanan County is like that of all this seetion of the country, as variable as the wind that blows, as diverse in its extremes of heat and cold as the thermometer ean "conseientiously register," and combines every phase and condition of climate known to meteorologists. This may be a trifle exaggerated, but the weather reports prove the assertion that Buchanan County can boast of more different kinds of weather than almost any corresponding area in the United States of America. Possibly this can be accounted for in the fact that a real weather prognosticator dwelt among us, and took especial delight in "variating and variegating" it so that we would not beeome eloved with any one particular kind. We refer to Mr. John Busby, lately deceased, who had won an enviable reputation far and near for his profieient weather prognostica- tions and was known as "The Weather Wizard-The Goose Bone Prognos- ticator."
But weather has always been here and one of the strong features of this climate. It greeted the earliest settlers, in the winter of 1842-43, which was, according to those early accounts, one of the most severe on record. On the 17th of November a terrible snowstorm commenced, accompanied by wind, which cansed immense drifts. Most of the houses having been hastily erected that spring of logs, were imperfectly chinked and plastered and it was impossible to keep out the drifting snow. Kessler's was in this condition and his family took refuge at Clark's, which was better protected. On returning after the storm, they found their house drifted completely full and buried, even to the chinmey, and had to dig out their furniture piece by piece. They dug a regu- lar stairway from the door to the top of the snow, and also one to reach the water in the spring close by, through snow fourteen feet in depth. The storm ended in a sleet which left a hard crust on the surface strong enough to bear the weight of a man and this was the way the mail was carried to Ead's Grove. The privations which these poor, illy-prepared pioneers endured would appall the generations of today. The spring of that year was just as backward and cold as the winter had been severe. On the 1st of April the river was still frozen and teams crossed on the iee. We believe this is a record which has never been broken, and undoubtedly our climate has changed since those pioneer days- increased population and agricultural pursuits have greatly changed and modi-
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fied it. The winters of those days seem to have started early and continued late, even more so than now and with heavier snows, or if not heavier, with more chance to drift and less convenience to get rid of the superabundance.
"The great snowstorm of '61," as it is recorded in history, is as interesting in detail and full of dramatic incidents as a description of Cook's North Pole discoveries, and equal in beautiful and sublime poetical material and natural illustrations as Whittier's "Snow Bound."
The great storm, or more properly speaking, a series of storms, commenced on Tuesday night, January 15, 1861, and continued with intermissions of two or three days all through January and February up until March. During the first night of the storm snow fell to a depth of from eighteen inches to two feet on the level and being accompanied by a fierce wind, the prairies and railroad euts became so drifted that an effeetnal embargo was laid upon all communi- eation between town and country, as well as between the beleagured town and other railroad eities.
The circumstances that intensified the almost unbearableness of the situa- tion was that the Civil war was then in progress and with many of the fathers, sons, husbands and brothers at the front, and no mail for days at a stretch, and that containing stale news and still more harrowing accounts of battles fought or about to be fought and with no means of learning the details or results, the people were nearly distraught with apprehension. This condition existed all that winter and the railroads were alternately blamed, then praised. From Jann- ary 15th till the 26th of February, there were but two trains into the city and none since the 23d of January, which made over a month with only such communication with the outside world as the mails occasionally hauled on sleds to and from Manchester.
The snow laid on the ground till into April, not a patch of green to be seen. But this was not so unusual in those days, for we found a notice where on the 8th of April, 1865, the thermometer registered 12 degrees below freezing. Pre- vious good weather had led the farmers to start putting in their erops, but Jack Frost chilled their ambition for an early crop. This article further states that a furious gale delayed the westbound train seven hours, completely stop- ping it sixteen times between here and Manchester. This certainly must have been a veritable hurricane and the trains not so substantial as our present "Big Mogul" engines and unswervable steel ears. On the 5th of JJune, 1859, occurred a killing frost in this county. An early settler told of coming here by team from Dyersville and landing on the 4th of June. That night ice formed in the pitchers at the hotel where they were stopping. All vegetation was black and wilted and the loss to erops was great, considering the small amount of acreage. This was followed by an unusually hot. dry summer; rain did not Fall for weeks and the ground became so baked and dry that wide cracks were seen everywhere. The springs, ponds and creeks dried up and the cattle had to be driven sometimes for several miles to water. Fall feed was very searce, but this was not such a direful calamity then with the small number of animals in the county, as similar circumstances would now be with thousands of head of stock dependent upon it. The spring of 1865 was another remarkably late one, snow to the depth of six or eight inches falling on the 22d of April. It snowed continuously for about thirty-six hours and although it did not last long, there
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wasn't a tree budded or a blade of green grass to be seen until May, that year.
Another most unusual spring was in 1910, when Mr. March, instead of coming in like the proverbial lion and going out like a lamb, changed his repertoire and was so mild and balmy that vegetation immediately hurst into leaf and bud, and with the continued warmth and sunshine every bud burst into full bloom. But this was unprecedented, unusual and unofficial weather and must, therefore, be summarily reprimanded for such presumption. So March took a change of heart and reseinded all his previous good intentions, the weather turned extremely cold, froze all the blossoms on the trees; the fruit crop was an almost total failure; every leaf fell off the trees, and a more pathetie looking landscape could not well be imagined. Everyone thought we would be destitute of any foliage that entire season but remarkable as it seemed the trees put forth an entire new erop of leaves and the foliage was not perceptibly lighter that year than usual.
Several winters without snow enough to furnish one sleigh ride have been recorded, and it would seem that we do not have nearly the amount of snow fall as in earlier years, for sleighing is never long continued now.
The winter of 1873 was one of unusual severity. In January there were terrific snowstorms throughout the entire Northwest. One in early January continued three days. A pioneer declared that during his seventeen years' residence on the prairies of Iowa he had never seen a storm of such severity and duration. The railroads were effectually blocked for several days-consequently no mail. Many persons lost their lives in the counties in the north and west of Buchanan but fortunately no one did here.
The sumer of 1863 was an exceptionally hot one. The thermometer ranged around 90° and most of the time 94° and 95° for two or three weeks continuously. All over the entire country the heat was oppressive and the poor Northern soldiers under the scorching Southern skies, tramping miles upon miles in the dust and heat, without rest or shade, and often going hours without water, suffered untold agonies.
We have January thaws, February ground-hog days, March winds, April showers, May sunshine, June freshets, July storms, August dog-days, September fair and equinoxial weather, October sunshine, November frosts, and December snow-flurries, just as long as the "goose-bone prognosticators" and "weather wizards" have scheduled for us, lo these many years, and shall probably continue with the same varied assortment, indefinitely as we have made this our specialty. We. of this particular zone and belt, should become inured to any atmospheric changes that might happen along, as we frequently are called upon to endure a range of temperature covering 40° in twelve hours. Often a cool, elear, sparkling morning develops into a humid, sweltering noon and a hard frost by night with ice and snow 'by the next morning. We have all the different commodities of weather here found elsewhere and probably in greater abundance ; we have ice and snow, sunshine and cloud, rain, hail, dust and mud, zephrys, breezes, gales and electric storms in greater variety and degree, and in season and ont, but withal our weather seems to be the attribute to induce a fine, intellectual, sturdy, broad minded, industrious people, and magnificent. diver- sified erops. Our seasons are ideal in the broad analysis of the word : accepting
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the exceptional "to the rule," just as you have wherever you travel and experi- ence uncomfortable climatic conditions, it is always a very exceptional season and never known to have previously occurred even to the oldest inhabitant. Our winters are long, moderately coll, and usually plenty of snow is very essential here, both for the moisture and certain chemical properties it contains and it also serves as a protection to vegetation. The old saying, "A green Christmas makes a fat graveyard, " applies not only to diseases thriving in mild weather, but "to poor erops, more worry, less money, and early grave."
Our springtimes are perfectly delightful when they arrive, although they are usually slow in maturing: have to be coaxed and coddled for six or eight weeks before they seem to be able to thrive. They are either sickly, puny affairs or else cold, sullen and disagreeable, but when they onee burst into full bloom they are bewilderingly lovely. The summers are of every kind and fancy, sometimes cool and rainy, sometimes hot and dry, and in the early summer we are visited by frequent and often severe electric storms.
The falls here are considered the loveliest months of all the year ; cool, crisp nights and mornings with warm, sunny mid-days, and the autumnal foliage after the first frosts, which usually occur about the middle of September, is a marvel of beauty and color, and continue so until the late fall winds and rains denude the trees. Then there are the Indian summer days of late fall, with their warm, balmy breezes and hazy atmosphere: these are the left-over summer days which the weather man gives us as a sort of peace offering, to conciliate for what is coming.
THE TORNADO OF 1873
" Disasters come not singly," is an adage too frequently proven to allow of any argument, as the inhabitants of Independence thought when just two weeks after the big fire of 1873 a terrible storm to the magnitude of a hurricane visited the city and did much damage to property.
The track of the storm extended but four or five miles on either side of Independence-Jesup and Winthrop being outside its destructive force. Many residences and store buildings, some of them just completed, and some in process of erection, after the fire. were completely destroyed; the Methodist Episcopal Church suffered considerable damage and its spire was totally wrecked. Window panes were shattered and chimney tops blown off all over town. But ont of town the effects of the wind were more serious and several people suffered injury. East of town the Bethel Church was moved off its foundation and numerous houses and fine large barns were totally wrecked. Mr. Boone was injured, but not seriously, by his house being blown off its foundation. The house of L. J. Whitney, about five miles southwest of Independence, was torn to pieces and the whole family of five were carried several rods away and all were severely though not fatally injured. In Cono Township the new residence of Daniel Matthais was completely demolished and some of the family severely hurt. At Quasqueton several houses and stores were destroyed and at Rowley it was especially severe-the Evans Honse was blown down and Mr. and Mrs. Evans and a man stopping in the house were badly hurt. The Methodist Episcopal Church was completely destroyed and one of the elevators unroofed. Miles of
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fences all over the county were torn to pieces and the damage to property reached a high figure.
The summer of 1874 was remarkable for its long continued and extreme heat and its frequent severe electrical and wind storms.
THE CYCLONE OF 1882
On June 22, 1882, Independence was visited by a windstorm so severe that it partook of many of the characteristics of a tornado, in fact, from the news- paper accounts it would appear as the genuine article without any consultation of encyclopedia definitions. It was of such proportions as to call forth a special edition of the Journal printed during the night following the storm and issued early the next morning and like the Big Fire of 1873 has served as a comparative event for all these thirty-two years since its occurrence. This tornado freighted with great destruction to property and leaving death in its path, struck Independence at 5 P. M. and for a time it seemed as though the town was to be utterly and entirely destroyed, to succumb to a fate like Grin- nell, and other Fowa towns had previously been entirely destroyed. The course of the storm was southeasterly and no portion of the town escaped its fury while all the country north and west suffered great destruction of farm build- ings, orchards and crops.
Independence was crowded with people who had come in to attend Sell's Circus and how they all so miraculously and providentially escaped injury is a great mystery.
The first thing within the city limits to be demolished was the big wind- mill at the Illinois Central water tanks, and this was torn into a thousand pieces and scattered broadcast. On the flat just south of the water tanks were pitched the circus tents. The wind gently lifted the immense canvass, toyed with it a few seconds, in mid air, and then flung it into a shapeless, tangled mass of ropes, poles and canvass, which proved to be a complete loss to the circus. Three of the canvass men received severe injuries, and a boy who had joined the company at Waterloo only the day previous had an arm broken. Had the storm come a half hour earlier, when the great tent was a living, breathing sea of human beings, great loss of life must have resulted for the air was thiek with the flying debris and undoubtedly a panie would have occurred. A cage containing six lions was upset, one of the wheels snaped off and the door wrenched open, the largest lion with a terrible roar bounded out and the others were about to follow when the brave keeper, who was sitting on top of the cage when it was overturned and was precipitated among the debris, with great courage and presence of mind sprang and captured the beast and held him by the mane until a stout rope could be procured. He then tied him to one of the wagons and rushed to prevent the others from escaping, which he was successful in doing. The big lion was much frightened and excited and only with difficulty and by blindfolding him was he finally induced to go back in the cage.
On Chatham Street, all the way from the Illinois Central Depot to Main Street, a fearful wreckage of buildings and trees was left in the wake of the storm. The street was thronged with people and teams returning from the Vol. 1-21
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circus and with the air literally filled with flying boards, brieks and branches, it truly was miraculous how all the people escaped injury.
The damage to property was estimated at fully thirty thousand dollars; about fifty buildings were completely destroyed. One of the heaviest sufferers was John Phillips. The roof of his newly completed block was blown off and the upper stories were badly wrecked. The Insane Asylum sustained serions damage, the immense smokestack, 130 feet in height, was blown down, the work shops wrecked and a considerable portion of the mansard roof torn from the main building. The damage to that building alone was estimated at not less than' thirty thousand dollars. The storm seems to have started in Blackhawk County, about seven miles northwest of Jesup and traveled south- easterly. Many fine barns in this portion of the county were totally destroyed and an inestimable damage was done to both fruit and shade trees, a damage that required many years to obliterate. Hundreds of giant oaks that with- stood the buffetings of the elements for scores of years were twisted off, their topless shattered trunks standing as mute witnesses of the terrible strength of the monster against which they combated. Southeast of Independence there was no serious damage outside of Sumner Township, beyond this the storm assumed the character of a stiff gale. But the saddest feature of the visitation was the loss of life accompanying it. Two young men were the victims. Wil- liam Horan, aged eighteen, the son of a widow living on Division Street in the Third Ward, was crushed to death by the house moving off its foundation just as he was descending the stairs into the cellar. The other a youth of fifteen, named Ripke, whose parents resided near Pilot Grove, was visiting at the resi- denee of William Bradley in the south part of town, near the cemetery. Just as the storm had reached the elimax of its fury and the building was rocking and swaying with every gust, the boy seeking to escape started to leave the house when it crumbled and fell in, killing him instantly. Mr. Bradley and wife remained in the house and escaped with slight injuries.
As is usual with such storms many peculiar and freakish things occurred.
A few days after the storm, Mr. Edward Cobb, in passing along the east side of his farm just west of town, saw a pine shingle that had been driven clear through an inch fence board, the end protruding an inch on the opposite side from which it entered, the shingle was blown from the roof of his barn some forty rods distant.
Barrels, wash tubs, boilers, and every other conceivable thing were seen cireling through the air and were deposited in many ludicrous places. Brieks off chimneys were sent erashing through neighbors' windows and scarcely a house in Independence but was more or less damaged.
For many years, the memory of this storm made the citizens who had gone through the experience pale with apprehension at the appearance of a threaten- ing cloud in the sky. But during all these intervening years, while death and devastation have been carried on the wings of the wind to many a town and hamlet, even in our usually fortunate state, this locality has been singularly free from such visitations.
On Tuesday afternoon, August 16, 1898, a disastrous storm visited the northern part of the county. It was one of the most destructive in years. No lives were lost but the wind and hail combined destroyed a large amount of
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property. Local showers of short duration had been experieneed for a week preceding the storm. This storm, in its intensity and whirling propensities, reached the proportions of a cyclone. The storm varied in different seetions and had no well defined course, but fell hardest in the vicinity of Fairbank. No particular damage was done in the Town of Fairbank but throughout the | country in that vicinity farm property and the crops were badly demolished. In the grove north of Fairbank, the traek of the storm was clearly defined by a space a couple of rods wide extending through its entire length where the trees were blown down. On either side of this path they were not injured to any extent.
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