Appears in "The Wapanucka Press" 28 April 1904, Wapanucka, Johnston County, Indian Territory, now Oklahoma

FIVE ARE KILLED

Cyclone Sweeps Over Cherokee Nation

Storm Is The Worst Near Choteau

At Choteau John Truelove and Child Were Killed - Indian Woman and Child Killed - Communication Nearly Shut Off

Muskogee: Monday afternoon a cyclone swept over the Cherokee Nation, beginning in the Verdigris River bottoms and extended northeast to the northern part of the Cherokee Nation. At Choteau John Truelove and his child were killed and Mrs. Truelove will die of bruises.

The cyclone veered to the north of the town and barely touched the edge, most of the damage being in the country, and it is said that every house in its path was wrecked. All the surgeons in Pryor Creek were called to the country, and it is known that many people have broken limbs and serious bruises, six being dangerously wounded near Choteau.

It is reported that three were killed at Fairland, and that the town was practically wiped out, but this cannot be verified, as all telegraph and telephone wires are down. The Western Union and the M. K. & T. Railroad have lost three miles of wire at Choteau. The poles have been blown away and cannot be found.

The cyclone was witnessed by Dr. J. L. Blakemore and Robert Baugh, who were near Choteau. Ir appears to originate near Inola, narrowly missing that town, northeast to Choteau. When they saw it coming one ran to a storm cellar and the other to a plum thicket, where his legs locked around one tree and his arms around another. The roaring, whirling volume suddenly veered to the north and missed them by a hundred yards.

Truelove started to run to his storm cellar with his child. he was blown down and a wagon tongue struck him in the head, mashing his skull and ripping its way down his back. Mrs. Truelove did not get out of the house which was torn to pieces. Spokes were jerked out of the wheels of the wagon that killed Truelove and the wheels twisted to pieces. Great hailstones and a deluge of rain accompanied the cyclone and railroad traffic has been practically abandoned on lines crossed by the storm for twenty-four hours. A complete list of the dead and injured is not known.

Mrs. Frank Lamar was killed at Fairland. An Indian woman and her child, from Tahlequah, unknown, were killed. In the same vicinity a young man, name unknown, living in a cabin between Checotah and Fairland was blown a quarter of a mile from his home, struck a barb wife fence and was nearly cut in two. The house was demolished and the young man's father blown half a mile in the storm, but escaped alive.

Considerable damage was done at Broken Arrow, and two of the buildings in Fairland blown to pieces.