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1883 Rochester, Minnesota, F5-Tornado Catalyzed Change
On May 2, 1803, the United States Government famously purchased from France the massive French territory Louisiana, which encompassed all or part of 14 current states, including what would become Minnesota, and 2 Canadian provinces. Just fifty years later, in 1854, pioneers standing on the west side of the north-to-south wending Zumbro River, a tributary of the Mississippi River. There they directed an oxen team to drag a log down what was to become Broadway Avenue, to clear away brush, marking the humble beginning of Rochester, Minnesota. (1)
A decade later (1863), Englishman Dr. William Worrall Mayo (1819-1911), settled with his family in Rochester, when appointed an examining surgeon for the Union Army Enrollment Board. His two sons, William James (1861-1939) and Charles Horace (1865-1939), were to follow him into the practice of medicine, as described elsewhere. (2)
By 1869, Rochester boasted 4,500 residents and the Olmsted County Courthouse, many churches (Cavalry Episcopal, Congregational, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Universalist), the Cook House, a first-class hotel, the imposing Central High School, the First National Bank, and the Haney Block of stores, among other establishments. Most of the structures in town were built of brick. Farms dotted the countryside outside town limits.
In 1877, Mother Alfred Moes (1828-1899), born in Remich, Luxembourg, of the Order of St. Francis, left Joliet, Illinois, for Minnesota where she worked indefatigably to establish the Sisters of Saint Francis in Rochester, Minnesota, as described elsewhere. (3-5)
Five years after Mother Alfred and twenty years after Dr. Mayo arrived in Rochester, a severe tornado incinerated Rochester’s north side. The morning of Tuesday, August 21, 1883, began so hot and humid, Mother Alfred was glad to see thunderheads forming in the northwest. Rain would bring relief from the stifling heat. But the clouds soon turned black and ominous and began moving toward the city. Around suppertime, a heavy rain started to fall, then hail, and the wind began to shriek its warning. Then Mother Alfred saw the tornado. A huge black funnel that appeared at least one hundred feet high, it seemed to be surrounded by an eerie mist, with a yellow light shining through it. As the tornado approached the convent, its powerful tail tearing a jagged path through the cornfields outside the city, Mother Alfred realized there was no time to get to the chapel, the usual emergency sanctuary. She shouted for the Sisters to run for the cellar, then told them to lie down on the floor; ever her huge St. Bernard dog. Mopsy, complied with her orders. As the tornado roared overhead like a runaway train, the Sisters recited the rosary and held tightly to one another. (6)
Another observer said, About 4 o’clock, it seemed as though [the weather] had commenced to clear up but soon heavy black clouds came from the northwest and rain fell heavily. Directly after six o’clock the clouds assumed the greenish appearance that is the forerunner of those terrible visitants, accompanied by a rumbling noise, and in a short time the wind rose, increasing in violence until the full force of the cyclone was upon us. What was a well populated portion of the city, was a scene of ruin.” (7) Tornadoes were familiar to the region. For example, a month earlier, another tornado had narrowly missed Rochester, instead demolishing the village of Elgin, about 13 miles northeast of Rochester. Two years earlier, a severe tornado destroyed New-Ulm, Minnesota, about 100 miles due west of Rochester, demolishing over 100 buildings and killing or wounding some 30 persons. (8) Rochester eyewitness George McDonald, who occupied an upper room in the Cook House, described the approach of the August 21, 1883, tornado: I was standing at the window watching the approaching cyclone, with no thought of the fearful consequences which would follow it. The sky was a mass of ominous, inky clouds, which made the earth dark as twilight, but illuminated every few seconds by vivid flashes of lightning shooting from one cloud to another. A stillness prevailed in the town; a hush as if there was a sense of impending calamity. Then a low, rushing sound as of a high wind blowing through trees was heard which grew gradually louder until it amounted to a roar. Men and women ran hither and thither seeking shelter. Signs were blown down and shingles and dust filled the air. To the southwest I saw a huge, black, funnel-shaped cloud approaching, which seemed to be revolving with great rapidity. I rushed to shut the window but before I could reach it there was a horrible crashing, banging and creaking, the whole building shook and creaked and the wind rushed in with such force as to throw me to the floor. The shock lasted but a few seconds. When I recovered I ran down into the street, where the scene beggared description. The street was filled with debris and people were running about seeking for lost friends and relatives, while the cries of the injured were heard on every hand.
The tornado stripped the fields leaving only “earth” and “that was all,” noted a survivor. Scores of farmers who ate their suppers with the pleasurable consciousness that wheat and oats were cut and shocked, could not find in the morning a vestige of straw even, and those who had not finished cutting met with no better fortunes, since the fields reaped by the whirlwind showed not a vestige of vegetation. The track of the storm probably averaged three fourths of a mile in width, and the length of the course was fully fifty miles, two thirds of which were under cultivation. Corn was stripped to bare stalks, unless indeed, the stalks, too, disappeared and the dead domestic animals are to be counted by the hundreds. (9) The New York Times reported the morning after the storm, on August 22, 1883, the following: A cyclone struck Rochester about 7 o’clock last evening, and one-third of the city is in ruins. All north of the track is devastated, including the Methodist church, Horton’s elevator, and many other buildings. The railroad bridge was swept completely away. A freight train ran into a building which was blown on the track at Zumbrota Junction, and the fireman, Higgins, is missing. Mayor Whitten, of Rochester, telegraphs that there are 24 killed and 40 wounded in his town. John M. Cole, a well-known miller was struck by a timber and killed. In Rochester itself, 25 dead bodies have been taken from the debris and 100 are missing. Mr. Cook, proprietor of the Cook House, John Cole, and other prominent people were killed….The roofs were blown from the asylum [State Hospital for the Insane] and the Cook House. The storm came from the west, and was cyclonic. (9)
The tornado slammed a narrow-gauge passenger train between Rochester and Zumbrota, Minnesota, on the Rochester and Northern Division of the Chicago and North-western Railroad. Thirty-five persons were injured, many seriously. The New York Times reported, The train that was wrecked was that which leaves Rochester at about 4 o’clock P.M., arriving at Zumbrota at 6 o’clock,” reported the New York Times. “It was caught in a severe wind and hail [reportedly up to 10 inches in diameter] storm that prevailed in that vicinity between 4 and 6 o’clock, and while running at a high rate of speed was lifted from the rails and converted into a mass of ruins. Gentlemen who have been to the scene of the disaster describe it as one of the most horrifying railroad accidents they ever witnessed. Every car in the train was a complete wreck, and was almost literally shattered to pieces by the sudden stop caused by the trains leaving the rails, burying the unfortunate passengers beneath the debris, killing many and injuring nearly every person on the train. A gentleman stated that nine dead bodies had been taken from the ruins, and that a large number of those previously injured had been removed to Rochester and Owatonna. At the time he left the scene, the work of extricating the unfortunate victims was still going on, and it was believed that the number killed would reach a score when the final summing up was made. (10) An updated New York Times report on August 23, 1883, of the damage done by the Rochester tornado cyclone noted that the number of dead had risen to 34 and wounded, to 82. Furthermore, The wind swept diagonally across the town, covering a space of a mile and three-quarters in length by three-quarters of a mile in width, in which every building, some 300 in number, was virtually destroyed, with their contents. It is now believed the damage will reach half a million dollars. At 6:45 on Tuesday morning the south-west quarter of the heavens assumed a sickly, greenish tint, which changed to copper-color, then to bronze. It was noted that a decided and dreadful inverted cone with a height seemingly immeasurable and murkiness appalling, with the speed of a cannon ball came down the valley at Silver Creek, and when within half a mile of the city its roar could be heard fully 300 feet in the air. It rose, and in its whirling mass were trees and stones, animals and debris of every conceivable description. The dome of the courthouse melted from view, trees were snapped and twisted and lifted bodily into the air with tons of earth clinging to their roots. Fifteen minutes of this and the monster had ceased. By 8 o’clock the stars crept out, and there was calm and silence, save as broken by the groans of the wounded and dying. All night long by the fitful light of lanterns and the moon citizens from outside toiled to render succor to the distressed. By sunrise those of the wounded who had friends were taken to private houses. A majority were taken to a large hall in Broadway. (11) An eyewitness to the immediate aftermath, Mr. E.A. Peck, who was on an unaffected train going to Rochester, told a reporter, [T]he entire northern portion of the place, from the Chicago and North-western railroad track, was a confused mass of debris. Scarcely a house was standing, and the few which were, had been removed from their foundations and shattered as if by an earthquake. The affrighted survivors were at work rescuing the injured and recovering the bodies of the dead. Before midnight 23 corpses lay in the hotel to which they had been removed. They presented a shocking appearance, some of them being crushed and mangled out of all human semblance. Nearly all were injured about the head, and from their begrimed faces, appeared to have been dragged in the earth by the whirlwind. (11) Indeed, the passengers on the train on which Mr. Peck rode were “not aware that a cyclone had passed near them until their attention was directed to feather beds and articles of wearing apparel lodged against the barbed-wire fences, which indicate something of a blow. Wheat and other straw was twisted about the rails in large quantities, presenting a singular appearance where the cyclone crossed the track.” (11) Where were the Mayos when the tornado struck Rochester? The Mayo brothers, Will, who had just graduated from medical school, and Charlie, who was in college, had been at the Rochester slaughterhouse to collect a sheep’s head upon which to practice cataract operations that night. As they rushed home, aware that a violent storm was approaching, the tornado reached the city limits of Rochester…Just after the Mayos crossed a bridge on North Broadway Street, the bridge collapsed and two grain elevators fell. As they raced toward downtown, the cornice of a building was blown off, and a piece of it struck their horse. The terrified animal broke loose from the buggy and galloped up Broadway into a blacksmith’s shop. Will and Charlie ran after the horse and reached the shop just its tin room was torn off. They huddled close to the wall for the remainder of the storm, listening to the howling tornado as it destroyed much of the city. (12) As soon as he could, Dr. W.W. Mayo (Will and Charlie’s father) ran to Buck’s Hotel near the demolished railroad depot where he started triaging and treating the wounded. When the tornado had passed by the convent, the Sisters left the cellar cautiously, and saw that the setting sun was beginning to peak through the clouds. “The only damage to the convent was a hole in one corner of the tin roof.” (12) Dr. W.W. Mayo initially set up at Buck’s Hotel sent a boy to the convent with the news that the north side of the city had been badly damaged and people were searching among the debris for the dead and injured. Many people need help and Dr. Mayo wondered if the Sisters could put up some of the injured at the convent. Mother Alfred and two young Sisters immediately ran to Buck Hotel. Mayo appeared grim and tired as Mother Alfred and the Sisters, who were instantly recognizable in their brown dresses and large white bonnets, approached the hotel, but he managed a weary smile for them. “I am glad to see you,” he said, as he wiped blood from his hands. “We have much work ahead of us tonight. How much room do you have at the convent?” “We have room for a hundred beds,” answered Mother Alfred, her wide eyes scanning the dozens of injured people being treated in the lobby. “We had very little damage, and the beds can be made ready immediately.” “That’s what I thought,” the doctor said. “Tell the hotelkeeper to announce that Dr. Mayo says everyone who can be moved should be taken to your house.” He lowered his voice.” Don’t use the word convent. You know how some people are around here.” (13) Dr. Mayo was an Episcopalian. Rescue workers brought 40 injured individuals to the Sisters’ convent that night and laid them on parlor floors until cots could be found. (14) The Sisters worked throughout the night caring for the people brought in by the light of lanterns. At daybreak, Dr. Mayo arrived at the convent after working throughout the night, and told Mother Alfred his idea to improve care for the wounded. He said that the injured were scattered all over town, and that most of the homes housing them were filled to capacity, “The most efficient way to care for everyone,” he continued, “is to put them in a central location. The ideal place is Rommel’s Dance Hall on the corner of Broadway and Center. If we have to, we can also use the German Library Association nearby.” (13) Citizens thus transported the injured from homes, offices, and the convent to the downtown dance hall and library. The city council placed Dr. Mayo in charge of the improvised hospital, and several women served as nurses. Dr. Mayo again approached Mother Alfred, this time to ask for “a Sister down there [at the dance hall] to look after those fellows, meaning the nurses.” Whelan wrote, “The [nursing] volunteers were willing enough, but…they had homes and families to look after. It was urgently necessary to find nurses who could give their entire time to the job.” (14) Mother Alfred sent two postulants back to the hospital with Dr. Mayo, and sent another two there later that night. (15) Mother Alfred “eventually assigned three shifts of Sisters to work there, and she delivered lunch to each shift. The Sisters helped at the hospital for the next several days, until every patient had been released.” Other Sisters combed the damaged part of the city for survivors, and found a small girl with an empty tin coffeepot in one hand and a raw potato in the other. “Where is your mother?” the postulants asked. “Mama is sick and can’t get up. She told me to see if I could find something to eat.” The Sisters arranged for the injured woman and her daughter to receive medical care, food, and clothing, as they did for many other survivors in the weeks following the tornado. (15) The tornado that decimated Rochester on August 21, 1883 was actually one of three tornadoes to strike southeastern Minnesota that day. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says the following about the Rochester tornado of August 21, 1883: During the late afternoon and evening of August 21, 1883, three significant tornadoes (two F3s and one F5) occurred in southern Minnesota. (16) These tornadoes affected parts of Dodge, Olmsted, and Winona counties, and they accounted for 40 fatalities and over 200 injuries. The first tornado touched down around 3:30 PM about 10 miles south of Rochester near Pleasant Grove (Olmsted County). This tornado moved northeast for approximately 3 miles and it caused damage on four farms. One of these farms was completely destroyed. Other than this, few other details are known about this tornado. It killed 2 people and injured another ten people. This tornado was estimated by [meteorologist] Thomas P. Grazulis [born 1942] to be a F3 tornado. Damage was estimated to be $2,000 (in 2007 dollars this would be $42,000). The second tornado touched down 4 miles northwest of Hayfield (Dodge County) around 6:30 PM. At least 10 to 40 farms hit Dodge County were leveled. The massive tornado then moved northeast through northern Rochester. The enormous roar was said to have warned most Rochester residents. Over 135 homes were destroyed and another 200 were damaged. The tornado also derailed a train near Zumbrota Junction. The mile wide tornado then began to move east again as it moved through rural eastern Olmsted County. It leveled several farmsteads before dissipating 10 miles east of Rochester. The tornado killed 37 people and injured 200 others. Many of the injuries were very serious and other deaths probably occurred, but they are not listed in this total. This tornado was on the ground for 25 miles and it was estimated by Thomas P. Grazulis to be a F5 tornado. The total damage was estimated to be $700,000 (in 2007 dollars this would be $14.9 million) The final tornado touched down around 8:30 PM two miles north of St. Charles (Winona County). This tornado then moved east northeast for 12 miles before dissipating 4 miles north of Lewiston. One man was killed in the destruction of a farm house 4 miles northeast of St. Charles. In addition to this death, the tornado injured 19 others. This tornado was estimated by Thomas P. Grazulis to be a F3 tornado. It was estimated that this tornado produced $1,000 in damage (in 2007 dollars this would be $21,000). Prior to these tornadoes, there were only three hospitals in the state of Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities. None of these hospitals was located near Rochester. (16) The experience of the tornado disaster changed Mother Alfred, who conceived of a new idea that would change Rochester forever. She was very experienced in founding and running Catholic schools, but now she wanted Rochester to have a Catholic hospital. How was she qualified to lead such an undertaking? Whelan wrote, “She was well acquainted with Sisters’ hospitals in both Europe and the United States. Luxembourg, the land of her birth, had a long tradition of hospitals operated by vowed religious women. For centuries, hospitals and schools were the bedrock of Catholic benevolent institutions throughout Western Europe.” Mother Alfred knew the Sisters of Charity and their hospital in Milwaukee, which they opened to “all citizens or strangers without distinction of class, religion, or nation…” Furthermore, she “recognized that such service for all persons decreased the degree of anti-Catholicism pervasive at the time.” As a Holy Cross Sister in Indiana, Mother Alfred had been exposed to the work of Mother Superior Angela Gillespie (1824-1887), founder of the Holy Cross Nursing Sisters, who established eight military hospitals and staffed two hospital ships to care for the needs of the wounded of the Civil War. (17-18) Mother Alfred approached Dr. W.W. Mayo with her idea about a hospital. Dr. Mayo provided an account of their conversation in 1894: The Mother Superior came down to my office and in the course of her visit she asked, “Doctor, do you not think a hospital in this city would be an excellent thing?” I answered, “Mother Superior, this city is too small to support a hospital.” I told her too that the erection of a hospital was a difficult undertaking and required a great deal of money, and moreover we had no assurance f its success even after a great deal of time and money had been put into it. “Very well,” she persisted; “but you just promise me to take charge of it and we will set that building before you at once. With our faith and hope and energy, it will succeed.” I asked her how much money the Sisters would be willing to put into it, and her reply was, “How much do you want?” “Would you be willing to risk forty thousand dollars?” I said. “Yes,” she replied, “and more if you want it. Draw up your plans. It will be built at once.” (17)
For the next four years, Mother Alfred and the Sisters raised the money for a building fund. Of note, four sisters voted against (27 voted for) the hospital because they favored retaining education as the congregation’s sole ministry and recipient of all resources. When Mother Alfred had enough money, she again approached Dr. Mayo, who reciprocated by choosing a site for the hospital—nine acres, just west of the city limits on Zumbro Street. The Catholic bishop approved the project and two months later, the Sisters paid $2,200 cash to John Ostrum, a local farmer, for the hospital property. Meanwhile, Dr. Mayo worked on designing the new hospital, which, he declared, “must be the best and most modern that means allowed.” He and son Will toured hospitals on the East Coast, including the new Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn where Dr. Henry P. de Forest recalled the visit by “a gentleman from the West dressed in a …Prince Albert coat of black broadcloth accompanied by his youthful son.” (19) The hospital was named Saint Marys Hospital, and it opened officially on October 1, 1889. The Mayos, never much for pomp and palaver, performed an operation for the removal of a cancer of the eye the day before official opening. Dr. Charles Mayo performed it, Dr. W.J. Mayo assisted, and Dr. W.W. Mayo gave the anesthetic.” (19) Despite the incredible progress made by the Sisters and the Mayos in pressing forward with the building of Saint Marys Hospital, the early years of the hospital were tough. For example, the Sisters faced a daunting lack of funds for furnishing the wards and private rooms. They opened only three small wards and one private room initially because they had barely a dozen iron cots, a few dozen unbleached muslin sheets and pillowcases, and some rough gowns. Outer bedclothing was scarce… Someone donated a few heavy quilts of garish patterns, but there were no blankets until the hospital earned funds to purchase them. The mattresses did not fit the cots and slipped around on the crude springs; the nurses had to be alert to prevent them from sliding to the floor, carrying patient and bedclothing with them. Eight patients were admitted the first week and exhausted the number of beds set aside for patients. The Sisters gave up their own beds to make room for more patients. At bedtime, they dragged out extra mattresses and made up sleeping accommodations on the floor. In truth, they had no furniture except beds, “not a commode or a dresser in the hospital except one heavy black walnut piece sent over from the mother house.” (20) The Mayos equipped the single operating room, located on the second floor. “It was about 12 feet square, faced north and had a large bay window of plate glass, a smaller window on either side, and a skylight of heavy glass.” Dr. Charlie, who had recently visited hospitals in Europe, designed surgical instruments and built operating tables like the ones he saw in Europe. “He padded the top and covered it with oilcloth, then slanted three boards downward on the sides to carry the fluids into drain pans held in position by stirrups at the corners. With large “percolators” to hold the antiseptic solutions, plenty of tin basins in which to rinse instruments and sponges, and an array of syringes for squirting boiled water all around, the room was ready for the wet operations then in vogue.” (21)
The Mayos attended the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and bought there a complete set of operating room equipment in glazed enamelware manufactured in Berlin. They donated it to Saint Marys Hospital. The hospital lacked gas for the gas fixtures, so the Sisters carried lanterns to light their way through the hospital at night. “They hung a lantern on a tree outside to guide the physicians and others coming to the hospital after dark. An elevator shaft had been constructed through the center of the building but it had no elevator and no protective railing. Sister De Paul Rein came from the motherhouse to sit guard in the evenings until a railing could be built. The first floor housed the Sisters’ residence, offices, and kitchen; on the second floor were the operating room, the women’s 10-bed ward, and two private rooms; and on the third floor were the chapel, two wards for men, and two private rooms. The stairway went through the center of the building. The kitchen’s dumbwaiter on the first floor did not work most of the time, so the Sisters carried the patients’ meals to the upper floors. All the water for the building had to be pumped by hand from a basement reservoir that was replenished by a surface pipe connected with the city water tank. The sisters carried all the water used for cooking, baths, and other purposes from the basement to the upper floors. A surface sewer in the yard behind the hospital took care of sewage, except when it backed up, as it did all too frequently…The hospital was not connected to the city sewer system until 1898—at the Sisters’ expense. The road leading to the hospital was “ungraded, unpaved and without bordering sidewalks.” “Visitors and patients with no transportation trudged a mile through the woods from town on a footpath. Shortly after the hospital opened, Mother Matilda Wagner got lost in the woods on her way to Saint Marys when she took a cow path and the trail gave out. Every day, usually after supper, two of the Sisters walked to the shops on Broadway, where they purchased food for the next day and carried their parcels home. (22) Dr. W.W. Mayo tried to organize a professional medical staff, but met with difficulty because of the rising anti-Catholic sentiment of the time. Protestant physicians did not want to admit their patients to a Catholic-owned and run hospital. Whelan noted, “Between 1860 and 1890, the Catholic population in the United States tripled and continued to grow. Such waves of immigration alarmed native-born Protestants, who demanded curbs on Catholic voting, citizenship, and education.” (23) Worse yet, some Rochester physicians began to use Saint Marys Hospital “…as a pesthouse upon which to dump the heavy and dangerous care of infectious diseases.” “For these physicians, hospitalization was the last resort for terminally ill patients. The exemplary mortality rate at the hospital began to increase, to the alarm of the Sisters and the Mayos. They recognized that this practice, if continued, would jeopardize the reputation of the hospital. The Sisters took a bold step and ruled that no patient could be admitted without examination by one of the Mayos. The purpose of the ruling was to protect the hospital from abuse; the effect was to close the hospital to all but the Mayos and physicians who were willing to refer patients to them.” (24) Eventually, the hospital stabilized and began to thrive, steadily enlarging to keep pace with demand.
The F5 tornado disaster in Rochester, Minnesota, on August 21, 1883, catalyzed the building of the first hospital in the city. Notes:
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