News Items from The Kansas City Journal ~ Old News That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

January 30, 2026

CITY SWEPT BY

A 75-MILE GALE.

SIX-HOUR AVERAGE VELOCITY

HERE IS 60 MILES.

BIG WIND RECORD BROKEN.

MUCH DAMAGE TO SIGNS, ROOFS

AND PLATE GLASS.

Trains on All Roads From Thirty

Minutes to Eight Hours Late.

Wire Communication Is

Also Hampered.

With seventy-five mile velocity registered at intervals and a sixty-mile average for the six hours from 6 o'clock a. m. until noon, the gale that swept Kansas city yesterday broke all local big wind records for the last twenty years.

According to Weather Observer P. Connor today will be as cold, possibly colder, than yesterday, although the wind will have fallen. There was further development of a low barometer last night between Davenport, Ia., and Chicago, Ill., which indicates that the wind may continue hurtling over the northern prairies to fill the vacuum left in the atmosphere in the Southeastern states. This will not so much affect Kansas and Missouri as the Atlantic seaboard, however, for the barometer is nearer normal here.

"We got our first hint of the coming high wind when the wire told us that the atmospheric pressure in Montana supported a column of mercury 30.68 inches high, while in Western Kansas it held up only 29.10 inches. The normal pressure is thirty inches, so there was a decided lack of an equilibrium, the heavy air of Montana and Canada rushing down here to fill the space left by the expansion of the air from the past three or four days of warm weather.

DAMAGE IN BUSINESS DISTRICT.

At times yesterday morning and forenoon the wind attained a velocity which was almost cyclonic. Signs, which had seemed securely fastened, were whirled from store fronts, small buildings in the suburbs were overturned, and glass fronts smashed in, the whole aggregating a loss which probably will reach several thousand dollars.

People passing along the principal streets of the two Kansas Citys were subjected to multiple dangers, in which falling billboards, slippery streets and dangling live wires figured. Consequently the shopping was light, as the women stayed indoors.

When the gale reached its highest speed, near 10 o'clock, it became dangerous for a woman to step outside her door. Skirts and overcoats acted like sails, and many people of both sexes were bruised by being dashed against obstacles.

TRAINS TIED UP, WIRES DOWN.

Trains on all the railroads entering Kansas City were from thirty minutes to eight hours late yesterday. The engineer who brought his train in only thirty minutes or an hour late was complimented on his god work. The storm played havoc with the telegraph poles and lines, and the snow was banked over the tracks in places. Trains were tied up for hours in places waiting for orders.

Telegraph lines were down in all directions. Of the twenty-seven wires running out from the Union depot office of the Western Union, only three were in working order yesterday. These three wires were to Fort Scott, Atchison and St. Joseph.

Trainmen long in the service said yesterday that it was the rawest storm experience they had ever encountered. Progress was slow and there was so much switching to be done because of the care necessary to exercise when running practically without orders.

At Birmingham, Mo., a few miles out of Kansas City, Burlington trains were tied up for some time because the telephone poles were down and across the track. That wasn't the worst part of it. A car of telephone poles was piled near the track at Birmingham. The wind picked these poles up and piled them on the track. It gave the trainmen plenty to do to clear away the debris.

Labels: Birmingham, railroad, telegraph, weather

November 8, 2025

$500 REWARD FOR

CHINAMAN'S SLAYER.

WONG CHEE TOCK WAS A RICH

CHICAGO MERCHANT.

How He Came to Be Murdered at

Birmingham and Just When

Is Still an Unraveled

Mystery.

The firm of Quong on Loong, Chinese merchants, 317 South Clark street, Chicago, has offered a reward of $500 for the arrest and conviction of the murderers of Wong Chee Tock, a member of the firm whose body was found Friday morning near the Burlington depot at Birmingham, Mo. Harry S. Rerardon, Chinese interpreter attached to the courts at New York city, says he will give an additional $100 reward. Mr. Reardon has been visiting the city for the last week.

Mr. Reardon said last night that the Wong family of Chinese in Kansas City would add still more. They are related to the victim, and had the body moved to Liberty. A coroner's jury yesterday brought in a verdict that Wong Chee Tock came to his death at the hands of parties unknown to the jury. The body possibly will be sent to Chicago for burial tomorrow morning. In case it is not it will be buried here.

It was first believed that Wong Chee Tock had been smuggled over the line from the Mexican border, as some small change in Mexican money was found on the body, but Mr. Reardon, who knows all of the wealthy Chinese in America, says this is not the case. Mr. Reardon said last night:

"This man has lived in America many years, and had a right to leave the country and return at will. He left Chicago about one year ago, I learn today from there, and made a visit to China. On his return he landed in Mexico, so as to visit his friend, Kawong Wo On, a merchant of Juarez, Mexico. This accounted for his having Mexican money on his person.

"The dead man is well known in Chicago, and was considered wealthy. It is my opinion that Tock took the wrong train out of Kansas City, and may have been put off at Birmingham to catch another train. It may have been that tramps who found him waiting there in the night took advantage of his ignorance of his surroundings, enticed him into the brush near the track, and killed him for what he might have on him. It is a well-known fact that a Chinaman never travels without plenty of money, and that he always buys a through ticket to his destination.

Mr. Reardon says he never heard of a Chinese tramp, and does not think that Tock could have been induced to enter a box car. The theory of the Clay county police is that the Chinaman was murdered in this city, and then thrown from a train passing Birmingham. His body was covered with blood from a stab wound in the left breast, and his face was crushed in, as with a stone. Mr. Reardon says there is blood on some of the stones near where the body was found.

The affair is very much of a mystery, and has created great excitement among the Chinese of this and nearby cities. Another thing which puzzles Mr. Reardon is why -- if Tock was killed near where the body was found -- the murderers should have taken the trouble to have dragged the body near the railway tracks, apparently many hours after the murder. The body showed signs of decomposition when found Friday morning, and the man is believed to have been killed two or three days before. What made the officials believe that the body was thrown from a passing train was its position near the tracks, and also the fact that the coat, shoes and hat were found along the tracks north of the body, as if they had been thrown from a train bound in that direction.

The police of this city say that they are not working on this case, for the reason that the Clay county authorities have not asked their aid.

Labels: Birmingham, Chicago, immigrants, murder, railroad, visitors

November 7, 2025

CHINAMAN SMUGGLED IN

MEETS MYSTERIOUS DEATH.

Found Along Railroad Tracks Near

Birmingham, He May Have

Been Thrown From Train.

The body of a Chinaman, decomposed almost beyond recognition and clothed in American costume and the Oriental accouterments, was found along the railroad tracks at Birmingham early yesterday morning. From all the evidence obtainable it is believed that the Chinaman met with foul play en route to Chicago. The fact that no bones were broken lends evidence to the belief that he may have been murdered and thrown from a passing train, although there are no marks of violence on his body.

Workmen found the body early yesterday morning and immediately placed it on a train and sent it to Liberty, where it is in the possession of Sharp Bros., undertakers, pending an inquest this morning.

From all appearances the man had been dead two or three days when found in a secluded spot along the railroad tracks. When the body was searched at Liberty yesterday morning letters were found in his pocket which indicated his name, also his destination and the point from which he traveled.

Wong Chee Tock is his name. The address of the Quong On Lung Company, 317 South Clark street, Chicago, is given on a letter head which was found in his pocket, also the address of a firm or company in Juarez, Mexico.

An altogether probable theory is that Wong Chee Tock was en route to Chicago, having been smuggled into this country over the Mexican line, and that he fell under the displeasure of some of his countrymen.

Labels: Birmingham, death, immigrants, Liberty, Mexico, railroad