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1903 Tornado

Address: 317 2nd Street
Olsburg, KS 66520
Telephone Number: 785.468.3209

Email Address: cityclerkofolsburg@hotmail.com

About this Exploration:

In 1903 there was a tornado east of Olsburg.  It destroyed one house, which was located in an area known at the time as "Four Corners".  The family that lived there in 1903 had just recently completed building a new home and were planning to tear down their old one.  When the tornado struck, it destroyed the new house completely and tore the old one apart.  The section of the old house that was torn off the main part had been moved onto the property from an adjoining farm several years earlier.  According to their hired hand, Will Sweany, the tornado also picked up their white horse and carried him some distance.  The tornado carried the barn east of its foundation.  Near where the barn was, the family had a spring that had been developed to feed two spring tanks.  This spring was part of the headwater for McIntyre Creek.  One of the other interesting tidbits was that the tornado destroyed the family's new surrey and deposited a garbage pail, or slop bucket (as they were commonly called at the time) inside the surrey.  The wife, who was a very neat and tidy housekeeper, was appalled to find it there!

As was common to the time period, all of their friends and neighbors gathered around and began the cleanup process.  They pulled the old house back together, and repaired it so the family could live there.  They put the barn back onto its foundation located across the road east of the house and repaired it.  Both structures continued to be used until the Carrol and Judy Lauer replaced the house when they build their new home on the property in the late 1970's.  The barn was torn down when Betty Lindsey purchased that portion of the property in the 1990's.