From Tuesday's Daily-

Last evening the country south of here was visited by the worst windstorm of the season, the section just south of Beltrami having apparently received the brunt of the storm, which reached the proportions of a hurricane in many localities.

The storm traveled from southwest to northeast and the wind was accompanied by a heavy downpour of rain. Crookston evidently being just on the edge of the storm, the rainfall here being but half an inch.

About a mile south of Beltrami the barn of Louis Opdahl was wrecked, and Ole Tuseth in the same neighborhood also lost his barn, while the residence of a farmer named Anderson was moved eight feet off its foundation.

In addition, there were scores of outbuildings and shanties blown away both in the country and in Beltrami. In the village of Beltrami several of the store fronts were blown in and the foof of Budd's barn was blown off, while several other buildings were considerably wrecked.

However, the greatest damage at Beltrami was to the trees. Practically every one of them were either stripped of branches or blown down altogether. The greatest appearance of havoc is apparent there today.

Train Stalled

No. 6 on the Great Northern last evening was tied up at Beltrami for several hours and passed the Great Northern northbound flyer there. Three box cars were blown from the side track, jumped the switch and hit No. 6.

One box car standing on the side track was completely unfoofed and another was blown bottom side up in the ditch. A wrecking train was sent from here this morning to pick up the debris.

Lightning Struck

There was a heavy electrical storm here and practically every resident was awakened. So far as learned lightning only struck one residence, that of J. Muldowney in Carman, and did no damage there, simply tearing off a few shingles.

Heavy Rain East

At McIntosh, Erskine and vicinity there was almost a cloudburst, according to passengers on the east bound train last night who returned this morning.

Threshing operations will be delayed here for several days and where the rain was the heaviest there will be no more threshing done this week.

Source: Crookston Times, Saturday, August 28, 1909

Submitter: Brenda G.
Updated: April 20, 2015, K. Kittleson