The April Blizzard, 1873

The Daily State Journal of April 15, 1873, relates that two boys were severely injured in Lincoln on Sunday by a shed being blown over upon them; and on the 22d that a man was killed by the wind in Olive Branch precinct on Monday, but it mentions no other casualties. On the 16th the Journal said that the snow was six feet deep at Grand island and that a gale of sixty miles an hour had blown down all the telegraph wires along the Union Pacific railroad. No trains had reached Lincoln from the west on the Burlington and Missouri road but they had come in on time from the east. Lincoln was "enjoying" the fourth day of the storm on the 16th. On the 18th it said that the storm had abated on the Union Pacific line and that it hoped that communication by rail and telegraph with the Pacific slope would soon be opened.

On the 20th - Sunday - the Journal said that General Otto Funke, of Lincoln, was snow-bound at Sutton, on the Burlington road, from Sunday until Friday, when he got to Crete on horseback. There had been great damage to buildings at Sutton and in its vicinity, and large numbers of horses and cattle were smothered in the snow. Near Grafton the house of the Keeler family, comprising husband, wife and one child, blew in upon them, and in trying to reach a neighbor's, half a mile distant, the mother and child perished. After they were dead the nearly crazed father pressed on and arrived at his goal in an exhausted condition. The storm was roughest between Grafton and Sutton.

The Journal of the 22d says that the first train from the west reached Lincoln on the 21st. Ed. A. Church, for many years manager of the theater in Lincoln, was among the passengers. He had been visiting his family at their home near Hastings, where he was snow-bound for a week. Within two sections in the neighborhood twelve horses perished. Often roofs of stables were blown off, and then the snow filled the buildings, smothering the stock. On Sunday afternoon a man who lived near Red Cloud was visiting a neighbor two miles from his own home when the storm came, preventing his return. Fearing that he had been lost, the next morning his wife started for the neighbor's house with her little daughter. They were found dead within ten rods of their own house. One farmer in that vicinity lost seventy-five cattle. The Journal of April 24 complained of continued winter weather. According to the accounts, the storm was much severer in Seward county than in Lancaster.

Charles B. Letton, now a Justice of the supreme court of Nebraska, was keeping house all alone in a dugout, about seven miles north of Fairbury, at the time of the storm. He relates that the spring was very forward and that the weather was extremely pleasant on the fatal Easter Sunday when a fierce northwest wind, with rain, came suddenly. On Monday morning there was a howling snowstorm and the snow had so nearly filled his stable, that two at the animals were smothered before he could dig them out. He was obliged to shelter some of the stock in his house and this was commonly done by settlers in the vicinity. Many people whose houses were unroofed or who had sought protection in ravines were frozen or smothered to death.

Under the head, "The Storm in Platte County," The Platte Journal of April 23, 1873; said that no human being perished in the county during the "fearful storm" but a thousand head of cattle and a few horses, mules, sheep and chickens succumbed. The ratio of losses of cattle was not greater than in other parts of the path of the storm. H. A. Gerrard & Co. erected a temporary fence above the original fence of their corral, on the side where the snow got up to the top of it, and thus kept the cattle from getting out and drifting to destruction with the storm; and notwithstanding that there was no shelter in the enclosure, they all survived. There were no losses where good care was taken. The Journal called it "the terrific storm of April 14th, 15th and 16th." It also copied from the Kearney Press a statement that a woman who lived fifteen miles northeast of the town, whose husband was absent at Grand Island, perished in an attempt to reach a neighbor's house after the roof of her own fell in. A boy about fifteen years old started from the office of the Lone Tree Sentinel on an errand to a place only twenty rods away. he was found dead in the Platte River a mile and a half distant. Heavy losses of stock were reported from Colfax county.

The Sioux City Journal reported that the storm was very severe at Yankton. On April 25, 1871, Captain John Mix of the Second Cavalry, commanding at Omaha Barracks, made an official report of the storm, which was printed in The Platte Journal of May 7.

He started from Omaha on a scouting expedition after a band of Indians who had stolen horses on the North Loup. His command comprised Company M and five soldiers of Company C. It traveled by railroad to Grand Island and then marched across country. At Loup City it was caught in a hurricane of wind and rain followed by snow. The men were saved only by shelter provided by citizens in the neighborhood. The storm lasted from sundown on the 13th to six o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th. Twenty-five horses and five mules perished, and many men lost their blankets, boots and shoes. Some of the men were badly frost-bitten and some so chilled that it was very difficult to revive them. Though the horses were only sixty yards away they could not be reached. A sentinel was buried in snow from three o'clock in the morning until the next noon. The command managed to march eight miles to Oak Creek on the 17th, and on the 18th it followed down the creek ten miles to settlements, where food was obtained for men and horses and wagons for the disabled soldiers. The snow was very deep and the weather very cold.

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The above article was taken from 'Nebraska History & Record of Pioneer Days, Vol III'. You can read it by clicking HERE