In February of 1851, a tornado decimated the east-central Bossier Parish village of Bellevue. Sometimes spelled “Belle Vue,” this tiny, remote community was the seat of Bossier Parish from the parish’s beginnings in 1843 until 1888, when it moved to its present location of Benton. This is a continuation of last week’s story (1/25/23) of how the village fared in the aftermath of this unpredicted destructive, nighttime storm. An anonymous resident described their harrowing experience in a journal, which the “The Bossier Banner” reprinted on January 17, 1895:
“’My God!’ was the general cry among us, ‘the whole town is in ruins and many must be killed!’ And then breaking out like wild men, the first object we saw was the dwelling of Dick Hollingsworth, a mass of ruins crashed between the weight of a large tree that had fallen across its center; we were at the house in a moment; we saw Dick, with his arms around his wife and little ‘Doc,’ while Mrs. H. was holding her infant in her arms, the huge tree within three feet of them and the crashed and shattered masses of roof and timber all around there. There they stood, each a mute, pale stature of terror—neither of them moving and scarcely breathing! We called to him, and he looked as awakening from a dream and answered.
‘We are all safe here, but in God’s name’—and pointed to Bodenheimer’s. So complete was the wreck here that from our position we could see no sign of a house! Some small trees in the yard had been uprooted and hid the ruins from our sight. We, however, rushed forward and saw Mrs. B. running with her infant in her arms, as if pursued by some dread object, with a wild instinct, seeking for some refuge, after the danger was entirely over.”
The house was a complete wreck—the logs thrown every way—the floor sills lifted from the blocks upon which the house rested, and not one chair or other article of furniture but what was broken, but not one soul out of the seven that were in the room was injured.
By 1847, the earliest Jewish settler in the area, Jacob Bodenheimer, was living in Bellevue with his wife, Eliza Weil. The baby in her arms would have been their first child, Harriette, born in 1850. Jacob was one of the first business owners in Bellevue, including providing lodging for out-of-town visitors. Since, as mentioned in part I, court had recently been in session and there were visitors in town, it is likely that the seven inhabitants of the destroyed home included out-of-town visitors lodging with the Bodenheimer family of three. Also, at some point in 1851, Jacob’s niece and nephew, Fanny & Lazarus Bodenheimer immigrated to Bellevue on the encouragement of Jacob, who gave Lazarus his first job. It is possible that they, too, were among that group of seven that survived the violent tornado.
We made a tour around town, and found but one dwelling house that escaped from injury. Lawson & Hervey’s livery stable was blown flat down, with several horses under the wreck. The horses were prized [pried] out of the sides and roof, and no horse was lamed or injured in any way.”
“After the tornado passed, there was not a breath of wind to be felt; the rain fell in torrents, but none of us felt the rain until after we saw all safe—saw the women wildly hugging and kissing each other, and heard mutual congratulations—and night, deep, dark and impenetrable, hid the ruins of the town from our view.”
“We have had our romantic incidents, our deeds of horror, our times of sickness, gloom and death, but our history knows of no more thrilling event than that of the 20th day of February, 1851.”
It is amazing to have such a detailed narrative of surviving the destruction of a tornado that hit without warning over a hundred and seventy years ago. What we don’t have is any scientific data from that time. The ability to record, analyze, save and compare that data, of course, is what would have allowed some prediction of the event to the folks of Bellevue. Unfortunately, it would be another one hundred years before the existence of any kind of reliable tornado forecast system.
A method of “rules” to help predict tornado forecasting were developed in 1884 (Finley’s rules from a US Army Signal Sergeant) but these rules and continued investigation gained little traction when the government forbade any reports or predictions to even use the word tornado, for fear it would cause unwarranted panic. Tornado outbreaks in Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee on March 21,1952, killed over 150 people and led to public outcry and Congressional pressure for the issuance of tornado forecasts. As a result, the Severe Local Storms (SELS) Center was established within the Weather Bureau in June 1953.
If you have any information, stories, or photos about natural disasters in the history of Bossier, we would love to add material to the History Center’s research collection. Please come to the History Center to see our new display about the 1978 tornado in Bossier City, or read about other events in local weather history in our collection, at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org
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