1875 Hurricane leaves a port in ruins

Indianola-September 1875—A monstrous hurricane, born in the far reaches of the tropical Atlantic, descended upon the fair city of Indianola, TX, on Thursday, Sept. 16, 1875, leaving a trail of sorrow and ruin that has forever marked the annals of Calhoun County. The “West India Tornado,” as some called it, struck with the ferocity of a Category 3 storm, boasting winds of 115 miles per hour, though some swear gusts reached 150. Its 15-foot storm surge swallowed the thriving port, reducing the “Queen City of the West” to a waterlogged graveyard of splintered homes and broken dreams. 

The bustling shipping hub of the Texas’s Gulf Coast, Indianola was alive with activity as district court had convened for two high-profile murder trials; William Taylor, accused of slaying Gabriel Slaughter aboard a Morgan steamship, and Joe Blackburn, charged with stage robbery and murder. Jurors, including D.W. Hatch, Jr., filled the courthouse, joined by strangers from the interior seeking the sea’s pleasures.  

“Most of the men of Calhoun County had been summoned as jurors to sit on one or the other of these cases but being underage I escaped summons. My brother, D.W. Hatch, Jr., had been summoned and drawn as a juror,” recalled James W. Hatch in 1923 from his San Antonio home. “Little did we know that nature had a far greater drama for us than any created in that courtroom. 

“As the storm roared in without warning, the low-lying town, perched precariously between Matagorda Bay and Powderhorn Lake, stood defenseless. Mountainous waves, driven by a wind of 100+ miles per hour, carried ship timbers and wharf beams through Main Street, battering homes to pieces “as though they were but cardboard. 

Amid the deluge, acts of heroism shone through the darkness. At the courthouse, Sheriff Busch, fearing the jailed prisoners would drown, brought them to safety, only to see Taylor and Blackburn turn saviors. The accused murderers leapt through windows into the churning flood, rescuing drowning souls and hauling them to safety,” recounts Hatch.  

“My brother, lashed to an open window in Dr. David Lewis’s sturdy house, lassoed 20 to 30 struggling victims, pulling them from the jaws of death.” The Lewis house stood firm and sheltered the survivors from the storm’s fury. 

“On Matagorda Peninsula, the storm’s wrath was merciless,” Hatch said. “Captains Thomas and Elijah Decroe, skilled pilots of Pass Caballo, perished with their families as 15 miles of the peninsula were swept into the Gulf. John Humphries, a son-in-law, survived alone, his family torn from their raft. Henry Pearserley’s raft, by fortune, reached the mainland unscathed.  

“At Captain Billie Nichols’s home, a harrowing scene unfolded. Mrs. Nichols, gravely ill and having just given birth, lay on a bed raised repeatedly to escape the rising waters. As the flood surged, Captain Nichols and his son Henry built a raft, anchored in the lee of their home. Young Henry, Dr. John Leake, and Miss Tot Decroe refused to abandon the ailing mother, but Captain Nichols and Dr. Leake forced Henry and Miss Decroe onto the raft, cutting it loose. 

“The two survived, washed ashore on Lavaca Bay, exhausted and stripped of clothing but alive, thanks to rope loops that kept them tethered to the raft. Tragically, the Nichols home and those within were lost to the receding tidal wave,” Hatch recalled. 

When the winds shifted north after 18 hours of torment, the water rushed back to the Gulf, carrying away homes, lives, and hope. Indianola’s 2,000 buildings were reduced to eight standing structures. At least 270 perished here, with estimates of 800 dead across the region, including 30 in Galveston, where $4 million in damage included the sunken Beardstown and a shattered railroad bridge. Strangers from the interior, drawn by the trials and seaside allure, were identified only by rings and earrings, their bodies buried in makeshift graves marked by fence pickets. 

The economic toll was staggering, over $5 million in damages to Indianola, once Texas’s second-busiest port, famed for shipping the world’s first refrigerated beef in 1869, was crippled. Railroads and wharves were destroyed, and the Harrison Morgan Steamship line faces an uncertain future. 

Relief efforts sprang swiftly. Sylvanus Hatch, foreseeing the ruin of Indianola’s cisterns by saltwater, dispatched wagons laden with rainwater from his ranch. His son, James W. Hatch, rode to the stricken city, finding his brother D.W. directing search parties. Three sailboats from Port Lavaca, spared by retreating up the Navidad River, ferried fresh water to survivors. Only three horses survived, saved by Sheriff Busch and two draymen who led them to a second-story refuge. 

In a twist, Taylor and Blackburn, the heroic prisoners, seized their chance. Blackburn snatched Sheriff Busch’s pistol, and the pair fled on stolen horses, later returning them with a $10 gift for Guy Michot, the man they’d relieved of his mount. They vanished, never to face justice again, with whispers linking Taylor to a later killing in Waco. 

Indianola’s spirit was broken. Though some vowed to rebuild, confidence waned, and resources dwindled. Half the population immediately left for the interior, with survivors like Elijah Decroe, Jr., and Miss Tot Decroe, who later married one, Dr. Paige of Georgetown, and settled in Williamson County. The storm, which ravaged from Corpus Christi to Louisiana, left a lasting scar.  

In 1886 Indianola was the scene of a second storm which, though it did not last as long as the storm of 1875, eclipsed it in violence. Railroad rails were picked up from the roadbed with ties attached and blown through the air a full quarter of a mile and landed on end in Powder Horn Lake, where they stand to this day as mute evidence of the velocity of the cyclone of 1886. As hurricane flags now fly along the coast, a grim reminder of the coast’s vulnerability, Indianola’s fate as the “Queen City of the West” soon faded into memory.