Not Even the Mail Made It Through - The Long Winter of 1880

“In 1880, a blizzard came in the middle of October to South Dakota. In a hundred years of western history, such a thing had occurred but once or twice before, and in those instances, the October storms were less severe than that which came upon the unprotected settlers in 1880.

The snow fell to a very great depth and was blown by a violent wind until the open shacks and stables were filled, ravines were drifted full to the level of the general country, stock was driven away or smothered in the drifts, and the settlers suffered very severely. A few lives were lost; very few indeed, considering the severity of the weather and the exposed condition of the people.

Everyone believed that the snow would melt away and that we should yet have our glorious late autumn, but such was not to be; the October blizzard was the beginning of a winter the like of which has not before or since been known. The snow did not go off, and early in November, an additional fall came, to which additions were made from week to week. The railroads, as yet unprotected by snow fences, were covered with drifts, and it was with great difficulty that trains were moved at all. By New Year’s Day, operation of the trains was given up entirely.”

The above passage is quoted from, A Brief History of South Dakota, by Doane Robinson. Another account of this unprecendented winter can be found in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter, which is the most accurate of all her historical fiction.