The City of Towanda was settled in 1863 by James R Mead, as an Indian Trading Post that was know to old settlers as “Meads Ranch”.  Eventually, in 1870, Rev. Isaac Mooney plotted and established the town of Towanda on the land just a quarter of a mile to the east.  The first store building was erected in 1871, and the town grew into a small village with a good number of residents, said to be around 300 people at this time. 
 Also, sadly lost, was James Blake, the 6 month old infant son of John Blake, who was a local Merchant.  The Aspen Weekly Times, out of Aspen Colorado, reported on April 9 following the tragedy, “At Towanda, the baby of James Blake was one of the victims. It met death in a terrible manner. Its body was not found until Friday noon and the searchers were horrified to see that it was without a head. It had been decapitated . . . In the temporary morgue the head and body were laid together and a narrow ribbon tied about the baby's throat would have concealed the wound. The parents of the infant were both among the very seriously wounded.”  C. L. Westcote who was found alive following the storm, but eventually succumbed to his injuries.  Dr. JD Godfrey, who was a retired local physician was internally wounded and died a few hours later.  William Bailey was reported to have died by strangulation. The majority of the remaining residents were seriously injured.  The storm came from the direction of Wichita, passing through Towanda, leveling the the town and turned to the north at the school house, and continued on for about six more miles.  It destroyed nearly every building in town, taking with it every leaf and twig on the trees. 
Many accounts of the storm from the residents reached newspapers across the country as news spread.  Stories of the feathers being stripped from chickens, to entire homes being picked up and slammed to pieces as the residing families clinged to their lives.  Ella Thornton was quoted in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper on April 21, 1892 saying “I was caught up and wafted into the air like a feather.”  A story in the Atlanta Constitution read “Charles Anderson, living near Towanda, heard a roaring and went to the door to see what it was. As he opened the door the storm struck the house and carried it away, leaving him standing in his night clothes just where the house had been. It took the house from under his feet, and he says he never felt a breath of wind until after the tornado had passed and the force of the gale was felt again.”  Another encounter, “ The family of James Gibson were standing in their door watching the storm when they saw something come rolling down the street toward them. It looked like a log, but bent and twisted in such as to excite their curiosity, and as it was stopped in a gutter near their house they went out to make an investigation after the storm had passed. It was the body of a young woman who had been stripped of every stitch of clothing except one stocking, and it was only by this stocking that they were enabled to identify her. It was that of Miss Belle Merritt, who was considered the most beautiful young lady in this part of the country. She was so disfigured that no semblance of her former self remained. She was alive when found but died within a few hours without recovering consciousness.”
This photo shows the town and Main Street after the cleanup from the devastating tornado had started taking place. The tall slender man with the cane on the right is "Father of Towanda", Rev. Issac Mooney.  Standing nearby with a cane and his arm in a sling is Mr.J.M Sorter who rescued 4 people from the storm before he realized his arm was broken, and to the far left in the buggy is H.S. Wait and his father C.H Wait. This photo shows resilience and a big push to move forward with rebuilding the life of a small Kansas prairie town. The Towanda Area Historical Museum does have some original dishes that were recovered from the debris.


Another clear account of this devastating piece of Towanda history can be found in a news article posted by the Wichita Daily News, included in our
​"A Day in the Life" blog:
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