"The Great Blizzard of 1888" 

 

January 12 was a beautiful, balmy, Indian summer day on the plains, with an unseasonable temperature of seventy four degrees. Farmers had gone to their fields in shirt sleeves, and children had gone to school in light clothing appropriate for the weather.

 

Without warning, the sky darkened, and the air filled with snow. Within a few short hours the temperature had dropped, in some places, as low as thirty four degrees below zero. The wind was roaring so fast and furious that a voice could scarcely be heard a few feet away. The fine, powdery snow, or ice dust, was so thick that a person couldn't see their own hands in front of them.

 

Farmers died in the fields, many of them suffocating on the fine snow before they could freeze to death. School teachers and students alike froze to death trying to make their way home, even some who need only have gone a few hundred feet to find a safe place. The driven snow was blinding, and children, as well as adults, could barely stay on their feet against the wind.

 

Many families suffered great loss as some two hundred thirty five souls perished during the blizzard.

 

 

"The Grasshopper Invasion of 1874"

 

For three long days, July 20, 21, and 22, 1874, the plains were swarmed by great clouds of grasshoppers. The vibrations of their wings sounded as a great storm approaching, followed by a deep hush as they landed and began to devour entire crops. A field could be completely stripped in only one day. Fruit trees were destroyed as the buds and bark were consumed by these ravenous creatures.

 

To make matters even worse, the grasshoppers filled the soil with their eggs, setting up a chain of destruction for years to come. When these hatched the following year, it was discovered that they remained low in the furrows, so farmers would lay grass over these furrows and set it on fire to rid the fields of the insects that would have robbed them of another years crops.

 

Many of the pioneers gave up after the swarms of 1874, fearing starvation in the year to follow. Those that stuck it out found themselves with highly productive farms.