Two Short Items on a Sparta Flood

The First Article:

“On  June 16, this little hamlet was visited by a genuine waterspout, drowning livestock, washing houses from their foundations and doing much damage to the tobacco crop.  Half the town was almost inundated, the water being up to the eaves on some of the residences..  This was caused by the railroad culvert south of town becoming clogged up by the debris.  The downpour covered a radius of three of four miles and lasted only about 40 miles.”

The Second Article:

“On last Thursday during the storm, lightening struck the residence of Sheriff Jas. Connley, doing considerable damage.  Thursday afternoon, the Sparta neighborhood was visited by a cloud burst which nearly ruined some of the farmers.  The rain fell in sheets and tore up even level land while the hillsides were washed into ruts and gullies, the soil being carried away by the flood by the acre. In some places the roads were covered with the mud and west Sparta was under water and mud a part of the time.  The two bridges over creeks on the Warsaw and Sparta turnpike were washed out and the Warsaw stage was unable to make its trips.  The water was over ten feet deep in these small creeks, and the damage it wrought is incalculable.  The storm did not appear to be even a mile in width for at points near Warsaw and one side and Owenton on the other suffered no damage.  The loss in the strip visited by the storm will amount of thousands of dollars.”

Both of these articles appeared in the Owenton News-Herald of June 22, 1905.