Though not the most devastating tornado to hit the Twin Cities area—six dead, eleven injured—the Lake Gervais twister of July 13, 1890, became one of the most famous. When it struck, a photographer happened to have his camera set up on a bluff overlooking St. Paul. He captured dramatic images that were published as souvenir cards, which the Norwegian-born Minneapolis house painter Julius Holm used as the basis for this painting, created three years later.
