Someone who spends way too much time at youtube.com sent me links to visuals of the tornado that destroyed Manchester, South Dakota, in June 2003. You can read about the tornado (and see more photos) in the April 2004 issue of National Geographic, and see footage on more than one oft-repeated television special.
In Laura’s day, Manchester was a thriving little town, with four town blocks of multiple lots laid out exactly as the four original De Smet town blocks, except on Kingsbury and Center Streets instead of Calumet and First. There was a depot, hotel, town school, and general store, among other buildings. The McKee claim was about two miles northwest of town, about the same distance as Charles Ingalls‘ claim was from the town of De Smet.
By the time I visited Manchester over 100 years later, there wasn’t much left of the original town – only a town hall and a couple of boarded-up buildings, plus a farmhouse or two or three in the town proper, one of which you see being totally destroyed in the tornado video (and you should know that two people were in that house when it was destroyed). Kingsbury Street was still a dirt road, and Center Street was your “turning around” point to go back where you came from. To get to the former McKee claim, you drove on dirt roads past several farms, but there are no buildings on the former McKee land today.
The image on the left is of Manchester shortly after the tornado. The image on the right is of Manchester today.
Rest in Peace, Manchester.
