George Woodhouse stepped off the train in Fergus Falls, Minnesota at 4:30 p.m. on June 22, 1919. He left his home earlier that day in Estherville, Iowa, 400 miles to the south. He was met at the train depot by Alonzo E. Brandenberg, President of the First State Bank of Fergus Falls. The weather was turbulent, as described in the Fergus Falls Weekly Journal. “The day had been hot, close and murky throughout, and about 3 o’clock in the afternoon a heavy bank of clouds began rising in the north and northwest. It was accompanied by a continuous rumble of thunder, and as it drew nearer there were occasional flashings of dull, treacherous lightning. The rumble of the thunder never ceased from the time the cloud first became visible.”
Woodhouse and Brandenberg quickly made their way to the Grand Hotel a few blocks away. This was a homecoming for Woodhouse. He had recently agreed to return to Fergus Falls and once again take over management of the hotel.
Home was originally Beetown, Wisconsin, where George Hollenbeck Woodhouse was born on July 6, 1855. In 1880, his father Simon (originally from England), aka “Junior,” and mother, Anna Marie Hollenbeck (New York), managed a hotel in Bloomington, Wisconsin, where George also worked as a saloonkeeper. In 1883, the day after Christmas, George married Nellie Lewis “Nell” Green in Marion, Indiana. Nell, originally from Arkansas, and George had three daughters all born in Minnesota: Fae (1885) and Nina Mae (1890) in St. Cloud, MN, and Dorothy (1899) in Lichfield.
[Note: There is some question as to the date of Nina’s birth. Later records indicate she was born in 1890, while others, such as the 1900 and 1910 censuses. suggest her birth was in 1887. Nina married C.D. Tedrow in 1917 who was born in 1891, which might have been a reason to shave a few years off her age.]
By 1904, George and his family had moved to Fergus Falls. Fae and Nina went to Oberlin College in Ohio and returned home and taught in the public schools. As of 1910, George was managing the Grand Hotel. Fae had attended the Fargo College Conservatory of Music for several terms and returned to Fergus Falls for summer vacation. She had not been well. In February she underwent an operation at Northwestern Hospital in Moorhead, MN and had another operation a few months later. Fae tragically, died on July 31, 1910, at the age of 25. The Fargo Daily Forum reported the cause of death “was a complication of diseases.”
Fae also returned home to finalize the plans for her wedding that was to be held in Fergus Falls later in August. She was engaged to Chester Jones, the former editor of the Fargo Daily Forum, and now the editor of The Tribune in Great Falls, Montana. Chester received a telegram on Sunday, July 31, that Fae was seriously ill and immediately got a train for Fergus Falls. When the train stopped over in Fargo, Chester received the very sad news Fae had died. He proceeded to Fergus Falls and attended her funeral.
George and his grieving family returned to Estherville where George managed a hotel and they lived on the premises.
As Woodhouse and Brandenberg walked to the Grand Hotel, the sky turned black as night and it began to rain. The men broke into a run as baseball-size hail crashed down around them. Farmers just outside of town described the unfolding scene for the local papers.
“They watched as the boiling, black clouds continued their journey and descent into Fergus Falls. It looked to them like smoke from a hundred oilwell fires as the formation was constantly rolling and billowing with what looked like ‘tufts of cotton’ forming around its edges. Looking straight up, one saw what appeared to be a patchwork quilt with the yarn-ties being pulled out one by one. By now, the roar was so loud that people knew it was not a freight train they heard.”
Within minutes after the men ran into the hotel, hell rained down upon downtown Fergus Falls. A large funnel dropped near Vine & Summit and moved northeast through residential sections towards Lake Alice where it briefly became a waterspout. It continued its destruction on the other side for a few blocks before retreating back into the clouds. At 4:50 p.m. a monster funnel dropped to the ground a few blocks south of the State Hospital. It quickly grew in width to more than 1200 ft, stretching 3 blocks from the west side of Lake Alice west to Vine St. It ran over a portion of the path of the first funnel “as if guided by some remote control to do the most damage imaginable.”
The Grand Hotel, located at the corner of Vine and Lincoln, was in the center of the bullseye. The 100-year-old, three-story hotel was instantaneously blown apart. All that was left was a rubble pile of crumbled bricks, sticks and steel—and much of that was carried away by the tornado. Debris was later found 60 miles east of Fergus Falls.
George’s remains were recovered on Tuesday afternoon. His body was found on the steps leading to the basement of the hotel. Authorities believed he was seeking safety in the basement when the tornado hit and the hotel collapsed. Alonzo’s body was recovered a few days later outside the front of the hotel on Lincoln Ave. buried beneath the rubble.
An Indian Agent named Johnson, who narrowly escaped death in a nearby building and was involved in the rescue and recovery, said the sight of the Grand Hotel was pitiful. “There was no fire, but cries and supplication were heard from underneath all parts of the wreckage, and then ceased as a life went out. It required steam apparatus to pull out the fallen timbers and twisted steel.”
The tornado was later determined by the National Weather Service, based on the extent of the damage, to be an F-5, the worst there is, with winds in excess of 200 mph. It levelled 44 city blocks including most of the business district, destroyed 159 homes and damaged 250 more. The fierce tornado ripped entire buildings off their foundations and flipped them upside down.
The tornado did all its damage within a couple of minutes before heading east, southeast, into farmland and retreating back into the clouds. In addition to the winds, 3.5″ of rain fell over a 20-minute period, turning the roads into rivers and adding to the destruction in every building still standing that had all or part of its roof torn off.
Of the 57 people who died, at least 35 of them were in the Grand Hotel. The tornado also destroyed the Otter Tail County courthouse, the county jail, four churches, and multiple other businesses. The Northern Pacific rail depot was completely destroyed and swept away. Trees in town were uprooted and debarked, and railroad tracks were pulled from the ground at one location. Over 200 were injured and the economic loss was astronomical. The local authorities said it was fortunate that the tornado struck late Sunday afternoon; schools and businesses were closed, and the churches were virtually empty.
A few minutes before the tornado hit town, it, or a separate twister, hit The Great Northern’s Oriental Limited, an 11-car passenger train, six miles northeast of Fergus Falls. The cars and the locomotive were tossed into the air and off the tracks. Fortunately, none of the 250 passengers on the train were seriously injured.
The Minneapolis Morning Tribune reported on Wednesday June 25, “A procession of ten automobiles, with headlights dimmed, passed down Lincoln Avenue and proceeded to Mt. Faith Cemetery. At the cemetery the Masonic ritual service was read. The remains of George Woodhouse were laid to rest beside those of his daughter, Miss Fae Woodhouse, who died several years ago. Mrs. Woodhouse and a daughter arrived from Estherville, Iowa on the Oriental Limited Tuesday afternoon, reaching the city at just about the time the body was found. None of the family viewed the remains however.”
References
“Cyclone Hits Fergus Death List Appalling,” Fergus Falls Weekly Journal, June 26, 1919
The Fargo Daily Forum, February 26, 1910
“Fay Woodhouse Dead,” The Fargo Daily Forum, August 1, 1910
“Chester Jones Is Bereaved,” The Fargo Forum, August 2, 1910
“Fergus Falls F5 Tornado of June 22, 1919,” Reddit.com [Online]; Available: https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1hctfog/fergus_falls_f5_tornado_of_june_22_1919/ F5 Tornado of June 22, 1919 : r/tornado
“Review of the June 22, 1919 Fergus Falls Tornados,” NationalWeatherService.com [Online]; Available: https://www.weather.gov/fgf/1919_06_22_FergusFallsTornados
“Night Funeral for George Woodhouse,” The Fargo Forum, June 25, 1919
Ancestry.com
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