News5

by REX ZIMMERMAN
Tornadoes and Hardtner, Kansas have always gone together. No, the town wasn’t wiped out by a big twister, although it almost was. And it wasn’t because the high school teams were called the “Tornadoes”, which the South Barber Middle School students still carry proudly as their mascot.
Hardtner owes its history with tornadoes primarily because of one photo, or make that photos, of one particularly large tornado that was taken exactly 80 years ago this coming Tuesday, June 2, 1929.
The tornado that day formed six miles west of Hardtner in the afternoon and moved east. It was a huge, classic funnel that formed at the edge of the thunderstorm. Because it moved very slowly and the lighting conditions were excellent, the massive tornado could be seen in all directions for 30 miles. It soon became the most photographed tornado up to that time. (We have two different pictures on postcards in The Kiowa News office).
Photos were published in newspapers, magazines and books around the country, and probably the world, as the “tornado near Hardtner, Kansas” made the town famous, at least in tornado lore.
How big was that 1929 tornado? Old timers tell the story of a baseball game being played that afternoon in Hazelton between Kiowa and the local team.
When the saw that huge twister in the west, they thought it was plowing right through Kiowa so they got in their vehicles and headed over to see what happened, only to realize when they got to Kiowa that the tornado was still another 10 miles away.
That 1929 tornado, by the way, clipped the northwest edge of Hardtner reportedly destroying a small barn and blowing a house off its foundation.
But if you’re a longtime Hardtner native, it’s not that big tornado that the town will always remember, but rather a strong twister that hit almost exactly one year earlier, on June 8, 1928.
According to Jean Brown’s book “A History of Kiowa, Old and New, on the Cowboy-Indian Frontier”, the tornado struck Hardtner shortly after 9 p.m. doing an estimated one million dollars damage (in 1928 dollars). It destroyed much of the town and nearly all the business district. Hardest hit were the Evangelical Church, the Cash Store, Allen Brothers Hardware, the Farmers State Bank, the motel, and an elevator.
Like the 1929 tornado, this storm was also photographed as a long rope tornado (see photos).
The destruction wasn’t limited to Hardtner, either, as it headed almost due east to strike Kiowa. It blew the cupola off of Franklin Grade School and blew out the glass in several businesses, including one of the local pool halls.
Several homes were also damaged, and it was reported that almost every barn between Hardtner and Kiowa were destroyed, and only three barns between Kiowa and Cherokee, OK escaped damage. This tornado was the worst storm in the history of the two towns.
Thankfully, no deaths and only a few injuries were reported from the tornado, except for “hundreds of young chickens”.
Hardtner’s tornado history doesn’t end with these two storms, however.
Almost exactly 80 years after the 1928 tornado, on June 3, 2008, the town was again hit by a strong wind storm that ripped the roof off the gymnasium at the former high school, now serving as the Hardtner Community Center. There was considerable tree and roof damage throughout the town, and damage was done the O.K. Coop elevator.
That storm has now been classified by the National Weather Service as an EF-0 tornado on the enhanced Fujita scale. After leaving Hardtner it also tracked due east doing damage to rural areas just north of Kiowa then heading to Hazelton where more wind damage was reported.
There just something about Hardtner...and tornadoes...and June, that make you want to start watching the skies when the calendar turn to the first month of Summer.