Western Kansas Blizzard

scottenglish768@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:27:36 -0600

"...1886, a raging blizzard swept into town, and that night buried the city under two feet of snow. Before Dodge City [KS] could dig itself out, the storm attacked again, with more snow and a twenty-degree below zero temperature. No mail or supplies came through on the Santa Fe [Railroad]; the civic-minded Ham Bell [Dodge City ranchman and proprietor of the Elephant Barn Livery Stable] led an army of citizens with shovels to dig out the train buried [at Kinsley, KS] beneath twelve-foot drifts of snow. Cattle froze by the thousands on the range, hogs died in their pens, and sheep’s carcasses lay scattered on the Plains.”

-"Cowboy Capital of the World," Samuel Carter, Doubleday & Co., New York, 1973, page 261. At their website the Kansas Historical Society has a four page newsletter published by the stranded passengers, “The B-B-Blizzard.”

Ford Co KS Old Photos

Western Kansas Blizzard