Grand Hotel site is revisited

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, October 6, 2008

Tom Hintgen

For many of us, it’s a sad feeling when seeing rubble at the site for the new Walgreens on the northeast corner of Lincoln and Vine in downtown Fergus Falls. That’s the location where the Grand Hotel was destroyed in the 1919 Fergus Falls tornado. Five people lost their lives at the hotel.

Both me and Missy Hermes of the Otter Tail County Historical Society thought of the same word to describe what we see — eerie.

Hermes wrote an account of the June 1919 tornado, also referred to as a devastating cyclone, in the Sept. 27 Lifestyles section of the Daily Journal. She did a good job describing the horror of that day almost 90 years ago here in Fergus Falls.

“Photos of the aftermath of the 1919 cyclone show massive devastation, but nothing as traumatic as the destruction of the Grand Hotel,” said Hermes.

Another article on the Grand Hotel appeared in the Saturday, Oct. 4 Lifestyles section. Also noting the former site of the Grand Hotel, in her Friday column, was the Rev. Kate Bruns of Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

Fergus Falls native and 1956 FFHS graduate Lance Johnson, who authored a book about the tornado in 1982 titled “Cyclone,” recalled that 54 people lost their lives.

“Residents who had looked upon the World War I ruins in France and Belgium had something with which to make comparisons,” wrote The late Elmer Adams, editor of the Daily Journal in 1919.

Photos of the Grand Hotel devastation show piles of wood, although there was some brick in the structure. Today, at the future Walgreens site, we see lots of concrete rubble.

My late Daily Journal newsroom editor, Jim Gray, often reminded readers that the Grand Hotel provided Fergus Falls residents and visitors with an elegant dining establishment. Hermes, after doing research, noted that the hotel was built during the economic boom of 1883 and became the social headquarters of Fergus Falls. Sadly, the hotel later had some tough financial times.

Gray, who died three years ago, also would — if he were here today — no doubt describe today’s scene as eerie.

••••••••••

John Cabell Breckinridge, whose last name is spelled differently than the town of Breckenridge, was the youngest vice president in the history of the United States. He was only 36 when elected vice president in 1856, on the Democratic ticket with James Buchanan who was elected President.

The towns of Breckenridge, Minn., Breckenridge, Colo., and Breckenridge, Mo., were named in honor of the vice president — despite the different spelling. Those towns, according to some historians, deliberately changed the spelling — to soften debate over the namesake joining the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Republican Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, with Breckinridge in second place.

Unlike other Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee who claimed obedience to the will of their states, Breckinridge broke with Kentucky after the state legislature voted to stay in the Union. Breckinridge entered the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He served as a brigadier general and major general.

At the end of the Civil War, in 1865, Breckinridge feared that he would be put on trial for treason by the United States government and left the country, later residing in Great Britain. He returned to Lexington, Ky., in March 1869 after being granted amnesty, and resumed the practice of law.

Tom Hintgen’s column runs on Mondays.