18 



The Florists' Review 



March 15, 1917. 



THE BIG BLOW AT NEWCASTLE 



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BENTHEY RANGE DESTROYED. 



Lynch Place Damaged. 



Late in the afternoon of Sunday, 

 March 11, a tornado struck the city of 

 Newcastle, Ind., widely known in the 

 trade as the home of numerous large 

 growers, and the morning papers of 

 March 12 throughout the United States 

 carried stories of many deaths and wide- 

 spread destruction. A paragraph of the 

 press report said: 



"Newcastle is known as the City of 

 Eoses because of its production of the 

 beautiful American Beauty roses. The 

 town has boasted of its acres of hot- 

 houses. Many of these were directly in 

 the path of the storm and the frail con- 

 struction of the glass-covered buildings 

 fell easy prey to the wind. Thousands 

 of dollars' damage was done to growing 

 flowers and other plants." 



Two Places Hit. 



The fact is that only two places were 

 hit. The establishment of Frederick J. 

 Benthey, consisting of about 110,000 

 square feet of glass, was directly in the 

 path of the storm. It was crushed flat, 

 as complete a wreck, probably, as ever 

 was made of a large greenhouse range 

 anywhere in this country. 



The P. J. Lynch place, consisting of 

 about 50,000 feet of glass, conducted 

 under the name of Heller Bros. Co., was 

 so hard hit that nearly every pane of 

 glass was broken and much of the struc- 

 tural material torn asunder. 



None of the other greenhouse estab- 

 lishments suffered serious loss. The 

 range of the South Park Floral Co., 

 Myer Heller, president, lost only about 

 $500 in broken glass, although it is only 

 a short distance from the Lvnch place. 

 P. .T. Olinger, who has 400,000 feet of 

 glass, is off at the other side of the city 

 and did not lose even one liglit of glass. 

 The Peter Weiland place, with another 



large area of glass, is beyond the Lynch 

 and Heller ranges and in line from 

 Benthey 's, but the storm veered and 

 passed Weiland without damage. Wm. 

 Dittman is only a block from the Lynch 

 and Heller places, but, like Heller, es- 

 caped with the loss of a few panes of 

 glass in his big Beauty houses. 



The Benthey Loss. 



The Benthey place consisted of ten 

 300-foot houses in roses and two shorter 

 propagating houses. All that standi is 

 the service building. The wreck of the 

 greenhouses is complete. The storm was 

 of a character to crush the houses rath- 

 er than to lift them. While there were 

 cyclonic storms in the neighborhood that 

 day, the blow which fell on Newcastle 

 was a tornado, described by the weather 

 bureau as the spur of a cyclone. It flat- 

 tened the greenhouses, breaking down 

 all twelve in the Benthey range, destroy- 

 ing glass and structural material. Five 

 of the houses were 13 years old, two 

 12 years old, three 10 years old and the 

 propagating houses were modern. The 

 place is estimated to have been worth 

 $40,000. The loss may be $35,000. A 

 part of the loss is covered by storm in- 

 surance, but it is thought $15,000 of the 

 cost of rebuilding the houses will fall 

 on the owner, in addition to the loss 

 of stock and sales. A portion of the 

 young stock was saved by removal to 

 the Dittman range and no doubt there 

 will be possibilities of salvage in the 

 bench plants, which are of the best 

 varieties. It is understood the range 

 will be rebuilt at once. 



Other Losses. 



Tlie losses on residence property along 

 the path of the storm were large. Myer 

 Heller, who is a large property owner in 

 Newcastle, besides being head of a de 

 partment store, estimates that it will 

 take $20,000 to repair the damage his 

 renting buildings sustained. 



South of the Ruins of the F. J. Benthey Range. 



How It Looked to a Grower. 



I was picking sweet peas in the green- 

 houses when I saw a storm coming. 1 

 thought it time to close the ventilators^ 

 and ran to the house. No sooner had I 

 reached it than a roaring sound resem- 

 bling that of a freight train came and 

 lasted a little more than two minutes. 

 When it subsided I looked out at the 

 greenhouses and could see nothing 

 wrong with the exception of about a 

 dozen hotbed sashes. 



At the Lynch place, a distance of 

 about 1,000 yards from where I am 

 located, which was in the path of the 

 tornado, not more than 100 to 150 lights 

 of glass remain intact. Glass was blowiv 

 in all directions, blowing down the 

 boiler room and nearly killing one of 

 the employees. The bars at these houses 

 nearly all remain standing, except where 

 they were struck by some flying ob- 

 ject, such as part of the roof of the 

 near-by rolling mill that was destroyed. 

 Mr. Lynch has $3,000 insurance, but said 

 his loss will be at least $15,000 more. 



Dittman 's greenhouses were also un- 

 harmed and I understand Mr. Lynch 

 and the Bentheys have rented it and 

 are moving most of their stock into it 

 as fast as they possibly can, although 

 last night was a bad night for it, as it 

 rained heavily all night, the rain freez- 

 ing to the ground and trees as it fell. 

 To think of having been so close to the 

 path of the tornado and to have escaped 

 without damage! It certainly was a 

 miracle. The only thing that is bother- 

 ing us is the telephone being out of 

 order. Also, a number of the men and 

 women failed to come to work. 



E. G. Hill, of Richmond, whom I 

 found yesterday at the Lynch place, 

 stated, "This is the worst I ever have 

 seen. I have seen a number of green- 

 houses blown down in my day, but none 

 so completely as the Benthey houses." 

 Here almost everything is flat to the 

 ground, except the benches, which re- 

 main standing. The boiler-room and two 

 small houses built in the last three or 

 four years remain standing, although 

 the gables were blown in completely on 

 these houses, leaving the roof with 

 about one-half the glass in it. 



Of the ten large houses which were 

 built first little remains standing, not 

 oven the iron gutters, the outside gutter 

 at the south end being completely down, 

 with the posts either iDroken off or bent 

 over and leaning against the bench. 



F. .T. Benthey, whom T found at his 

 ])hicc, told me he had only $5,000 insur- 

 ance against wind. With the price of 

 glass at $5 to $6 per box, this would not 

 even pay one half the price of the glass 

 alone. 



They wore busy here removing all the 

 young stock. They were keeping a con- 

 tinuous fire in the boilers, as the main 

 pipes all remained intact. Only at one 

 place did I discover a leak. I might 

 state that the rose plants in the benches 

 can all be removed and heeled in and 

 used again, although T do not know if 

 it is their intention to do this. 



The South Park Floral Co. houses, of 

 which Myer Heller is proprietor, were 



