6/20/2007:
In the early evening on this date in 1957, the residents of North Fargo experienced an event of nature that would change their lives forever. Tragically, this wrath of Mother Nature would eventually claim the lives of thirteen residents of Fargo. Perhaps most tragic of all, six members of a North Fargo family were among the dead.
The day of Thursday, June 20, 1957 started out like any other summer day in North Dakota. The weather was warm, and sunny with that familiar breath of summer humidity hanging in the air.
As evening approached, witnesses reported that an eerie stillness seemed to fall. In the west, the sky began turning dark, and soon became black against the skyline. Some residents described the sky developing an eerie greenish tint. Within minutes, a black rolling cloud seemed to cover the entire western horizon.
Then, at approximately 7:36 pm, the unthinkable happened. A deadly F5 tornado touched down just west of residential North Fargo between the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad tracks. Moving east, it continued on its destructive path, clipping the southeastern edge of the NDSU campus. Eventually it moved northeast and returned into the sky just east of the El Zagal golf course.
The Fargo Weather Bureau had issued a tornado warning just minutes before, giving residents in its path the opportunity to take shelter. Unfortunately, many people in North Fargo did not hear the warning.
The hardest hit part of the city was in the residential Golden Ridge area, in the northwest part of Fargo. Del Johnson, a reporter for the Fargo Forum declared that the “Golden Ridge area is gone.” The area between 24th and 29th Streets North and between 7th and 12th Avenue North lay in ruins following the killer tornado.
The eventual path of this deadly tornado was nine miles long and 700 feet wide. Debris from the tornado was later found as far away as Detroit Lakes in Minnesota.
The Fargo tornado killed thirteen, injured over a hundred, and destroyed or damaged over1300 homes. Many Fargo residents would later call it the Storm of the Century.
This week, some of those North Fargo residents will be reminiscing and recalling this catastrophic event that happened in their neighborhoods on this date, fifty years ago today.
Written by Dave Seifert
Sources:
Johnson, Del, The Fargo Forum, Evening Edition, June 21, 1957. pg.1
National Weather Service, http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf/?n=fargo57f5_comments
National Weather Service Forecast Office, http://www.crh.noaa.gov/bis/ndtornadoes.php