storm 1873 Hall County NEGenWeb

Easter Storm of 1873

Spring opened early in the year of 1873. The farmers had plowed and harrowed the ground and evenb sowed their oats and spring wheat in February and March. By the first part of April the grass was nicely green and by the middle of April the small-grain fields were bright green with new crops. The settlers were almost careless about such a spring; the prairies were, of course, bare of hedges, fences, or trees to break the winds and catch drifting snow. The whole scene was one of total unpreparedness for a severe snow storm at that time of the year. Easter Sunday came on the thirteenth day of April, following many days of delightful mildness. On the afternoon of that Easter a rain started up, with a heavy thunderstorm by 4 o'clock. This changed to a terrific snow-storm, which raged for three days without abating.

In writing in Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences of this storm, Judge Charles B. LETTON of the Nebraska supreme court, who was then living near Fairbury, in Jefferson County, described it in part:

The fury of the tempenst was insdescribable. The aur appeared to be a mass of moving snow, and the wind howled like a pack of furies. I managed to get to the granary for some oasts, but on looking into the ravine no stable was to be seen, only an immense snow drift which almost filled it. At the point where the door to the stable should have been there appeared a hole in the frift where the snow was eddying. On crawling into this I found that during the night the snow had drifted in around the horses and cattle, which were tied to the manger. The animals had tramped it under their feet to such an extent that it had raised them so that in places their backs lifted the flimsy roof, and the wind carrying much of the covering away, had filled the stable with snow until some of them were almost and others wholly buried, except where the remains of the roof protected them.

Throughout Hall County in the groves the snow drifted to from fifteen to twenty feet in height, orchards and groves were damaged, many trees destroyed, and farmers lost nearly all of their stock, some losing from ten to fifteen head, another seventy-five, and a third 100 head of cattle. Deer were found lying dead after the storm, and dead birds were seen everywhere.

The following description and conclusions by Judge LETTON though written concerning our neighboring county of Jefferson fitted the conditions of Hall County as closely as if written by a Hall County survivor of the storm:

Many settlers took their cattle and horsed into their houses or dugouts in order to save them. Every ravine and hollow that ran in an eaterly or westerly direction was filled with snow from rim to rim. In other localities cattle were driven many miles by this storm. Houses, or rather shacks, were unroofed and people in them frozen to death. Travelers caught in the blizzard, who attempted to take refuge in ravines, perished and their stiffened bodies were found when the drifts melted weeks afterward. Stories were told of people who had undertaken to go from their houses to their outbuildings and who, being blinded by the snow, became lost and either perished or nearly lost their lives, and of others where the settler in order to reach his well or his outbuildings in safety fastened a rope to the door and went into the storm holding to the rope in order to insure his safe return. Deer, antelope, and other wild animals perished in the more sparsely setled districts. The storm laste for three days, not always of the same intensity, and freezing weather followed for a day or two thereafter. In a few days the sun shone, the snow melted, and spring reappeared; the meltin drifts, that lay for weeks in some places, being the only reminder of the severity of the storm.

To old settlers in Nebraska and northern Kansas this has ever since been known as "The Easter Storm." In the forty-six years that I have lived in Nebraska there has only been one other winter storm that measurably approached it in intensity. This was the blizzard of 1888 when several people lost their lives. At that time however, people were living in comfort, trees, hedges, groves, stubble, and cornfields held the snow so that the drifts were insignificant in comparison. The cold was more severe but the duration of the storm was less and no such widespread suffering took place.

Transcribed from
the ©1920 "History of Hall County," by Buechler, Barr, and Stough
Reminiscences & Narratives of Pioneers

The Storm of 1873

When the great storm of 1873 came, Mr. ANDERSON was conducting the saloon at the corner of Pine and Locust. The entire building was drifted in, with snow to the top of it. When it lessened so the boys could get outdoors, they would climb up over the snow to the roof of the building, get onto their sleds and run over onto a story and half structure at the corner where the present Hedde Block now stands. Mr. ANDERSON remarks incidentally that at one time he was offered that 66 x 132 feet of ground, with the building thereon, for $1500, then owned by a Mr. LORD, an old engineer.

Mr. ANDERSON then lived in a story and half house on Pine street, right south of Second street. For three days he was unable to traverse the distance of less than three blocks from his place of business to his home. They then had a couple of rooms and a little small kitchen in which there was a pump and a supply of coal and kindling. He says: "I knew my wife had enough to eat, but when I went down to the house, before I could get in, I had to call some police and get a lot of fellows together and we shoveled in to the door. She couldn't get the door open. Then she commenced to cry and I wanted to know what was the matter. She wouldn't stay in that house any longer-it was haunted. I said nonsense? She went over to the wall, said she could hear it there. I went over and listened and could hear an ooo! ooo! I thought perhaps it might be a man pinned in there and perhaps he might be dying. So we got busy and shoveled it out, and would you ever guess what we dug out there--we shove led out a great big Texas steer, about fifteen hand high, immense horns, and his eyes were green. You had ought to have seen the fellows run. There was a butcher here by the name of Cornelius, and he rounded up that steer and kept him all summer. His hair came off his back clear to his horns. He was some sight. He had come this way in the storm, kept coming northeast; snow had just drifted in on his hair and froze it so his hair all came out in time. In the fall he was a big fine looking fellow and then they butchered him."