Earthquake? In Minnesota? The day the ground in Morris shook 50 years ago
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On a hot July morning in 1975, the small prairie town of Morris was quiet and ordinary. Farmers’ tractors rumbled down gravel roads to check on growing corn and soybeans and kids pedaled their banana-seat bikes to the city pool.
No one knew that just before 10 in the morning, the calmness that this close-knit town was so familiar with would be shaken by something unusual.
“I was upstairs watching TV, and I felt a vibration,” said Michael Myer, who was 16 years old, living on his father’s farm at the time. “At first, I thought it was just my mom doing laundry. We figured maybe the washing machine was overloaded or something.”
Just down the street, a then 8-year-old Kelly Larson felt similar tremors.
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“I was sitting on the sofa in the living room when it started as a low rumble — just a sound in the background,” Larson said. “Then everything started moving around. At first, I thought maybe something exploded. We lived just a few blocks from the railroad tracks.”
While both Larson and Myer were puzzled by what was rattling their homes, the entire city of Morris was shaken by a powerful 4.6 magnitude earthquake, its epicenter 5 miles below the city. Across the area, in homes, shops, schools and churches, jars fell from store shelves, framed photos fell off of walls and tables, dishes crashed to the floor and even some foundations cracked.
“I yelled out to my mom, who was in the kitchen. Neither of us knew what was going on at first,” Larson said. “But with the way things were moving in the house, we kind of put two and two together and figured it was probably an earthquake.”
Thankfully, there were no major injuries reported. Fifty years later, scientists and those who lived through it are still trying to figure out how Morris ended up as the epicenter of such a rare experience.
Since 1931, Minnesota has recorded 36 earthquakes, averaging fewer than one per year. Because earthquakes are so rare here, many residents assume that they don't happen at all in the state. Bill Eckersen, the collections manager at the Stevens County Historical Society, had just moved to Minnesota and was thinking the same.
“I thought I was getting out of the earthquake zone when I moved here from California — and then an earthquake happened just before I started attending classes at the University of Minnesota Morris,” Eckersen said.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists say even though they’re rare in Minnesota, there is almost no place that is earthquake-free.
“Earthquakes can occur anywhere,” says Annemarie Baltay, a research geophysicist with the USGS. “Minnesota doesn’t have as many faults as a place like California, but there are faults.”
Morris sits right on top of the Great Lakes Tectonic Zone, which stretches from Big Stone County and Traverse County on the western edge of Minnesota to Duluth in the northeast. The hidden fault line is more than 2 million years old, and over time, it slowly builds stress. When it slips, the rumble and shake can jolt people far beyond the epicenter.
“Sometimes, when there hasn’t been activity for a while, one earthquake releases a lot of stress,” Baltay said. “And in the central U.S., the rocks are older and colder, so earthquake waves travel farther and can feel stronger than a similar quake would on the West Coast.”
The 1975 Morris earthquake released activity so strong, that people across much of Minnesota, northern Iowa and the eastern Dakotas were able to feel the tremors.
Now, understanding that earthquakes have no boundaries, the city of Morris has chosen to embrace the geological event.
“It’s part of Stevens County history,” Eckersen said passionately. “People still tell stories about it. Whether it was hearing a rumble in a camper or mistaking it for a jet flying overhead, the memory is still strong here.”
