150 YEARS AGO

SEPT. 15, 1876

A Sunday school picnic will be Saturday at Carter’s Mineral Springs, four miles north of Marion Centre. All Sabbath schools and friends of the Sabbath school cause in the county are invited.

Tuesday afternoon, about four o’clock, an ominous cloud appeared in the northwest and rising rapidly, marshaled itself like a destructive army, one wing sweeping to the southwest, one to the northeast, and a great funnel-shaped cloud advancing from the center this way.

The wind blew a hurricane, and the rain and hail were so blinding that a large house could not be seen across the street. Hail came pelting the earth almost like a canister from a 12-pounder.

The roof of the Record building was torn off and scattered to the winds and the office flooded with a deluge of water. We issue this paper with daylight streaming in from above — a little too much light on the subject, we confess.

The first menagerie that ever visited this city is advertised in this issue. Already the urchins are saving their nickels, and older people are pretending they don’t care for such things but then will all be there just to let the children see the animals.

The grasshoppers are doing a great amount of damage here to the young wheat. They ate it off so close that there is danger of it not sprouting again.