Across the Fence: The Blizzard of '49

I suppose that every generation has their own historic blizzard and the stories that come from it. I remember a winter in northeast Kansas, I think it was the winter of '58-'59. The storm lasted only a couple of days but winds built drifts that reached the eaves of the barn. Dad and I dug tunnels in the drifts so we could open the barn door. During the two days of snow and wind the cattle had worn a path through the snow, from the barn to the tank, as it piled deeper and deeper. After the storm, midway between the barn and the tank, we found a pair of cows standing head to head. Unable to pass one another and unwilling to backup, both had stubbornly stood their ground until they froze to death.

I recall that I could hear the road crews plowing through drifts in the nearby county road as I watched huge plumes of snow fly up and off to the sides. However, the snow was so deep that I could not see the maintainer. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad crossed through our place and just past our lane the tracks ran through a deep cut. I remember that the first steam locomotive that tried to ram through that cut, after the storm, came to an abrupt, coupler clattering halt. The engineer, fireman and brakeman all came to our house to stay warm until they were rescued.

Most recently the talk has been of the unexpected blizzard of October 4, 2013 that hit the Dakotas and the northwestern region of the Nebraska panhandle. The sudden drop in temperature following a long mild stretch of pleasant fall weather caught many ranchers by surprise. Heavy wet snow sapped heat and strength from cattle on open ranges and driving winds drove them to fence corners and deep ravines in a futile effort to escape the storm.

Some ranchers wrongly considered themselves lucky since their cattle were safely penned in preparation for sorting and shipping. The morning of October 5 found their corrals filled with drifted snow, the cattle all suffocated.

Deb and I were in Hot Springs that weekend and watched the mesmerizing flutter of giant snowflakes from our motel window. The heavy, wet snow broke many branches, and trees still hanging on to early fall leaves bowed low to the ground. The next morning was mild and sunny and we walked the streets, admiring the winter scenes. However, our trip home through the open South Dakota ranges told a different story.

Along the highway, drifts were piled high. Ranchers cleared snow from pasture gates to open a path for tractors hauling hay to stranded herds. Patches of black carcasses peeked from snowdrifts piled in fenced corners. Reports of livestock losses began to spread throughout the region. Speculation was that thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps one hundred thousand or more had perished. The final total may never be known. Their stories will be told for generations to come, the blizzard of 2013.

Perhaps the most talked about blizzard is the blizzard of 1888. Often called "The Children's Blizzard" due to the terribly high loss of lives as children attempted to reach the safety of their homes after leaving school. The blizzard was so violent that many were lost and wandered without direction in the blinding and suffocating snow.

The blizzard of 1888 is also regarded as the cause for the end of the reign of the great cattle barons of Wyoming, Montana and the surrounding regions of western Nebraska, Colorado and the Dakotas. The loss of upwards to a million head of cattle broke the banks of eastern and European financed cattle companies. The era of the open rage ended and the rise of homesteaders, small farmers and privately held ranches began.

In the southwestern panhandle of Nebraska the era of the big outfits ended with the blizzard of 1886. In the first week of January a series of storms hit the plains of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Temperatures dropped to minus 30 degrees and hovered far below zero for several days. High winds and powder-fine snow suffocated and buried thousands of cattle.

The Bay State Cattle Company, with headquarters in what is now Kimball and Banner counties, ran an estimated 150,000 cattle in Nebraska and Wyoming. When the storm had run its course fewer than 50,000 cattle had survived. It is said that after the storm had passed, dead cattle could be seen for miles in every direction. It was told that a man could walk the entire distance between Pumpkin Creek and the south face of the Wildcat Hills stepping from carcass to carcass and never have to touch the ground.

For western Nebraskan's the blizzard of our 20th century generation is the blizzard of '49. Our local history books carry stories of people whose names we recognize. Names of those who are our neighbors, names of people whom we could call this afternoon and they would gladly tell us their personal stories of surviving the blizzard of 1949.

My wife Deb's uncle, Willard Wellnitz, whose family has ranched in Sheridan County, Nebraska for four generations, told us that on Sunday, January 2, 1949 he and his family had sat down to the dinner table for the noon meal. They had begun their meal when their dad noticed a sudden dramatic change on the barometer that hung on the dining room wall. He instructed his boys, Uncle Willard and Deb's dad James to go saddle up the horses and bring the cattle in to shelter-not after dinner but right now. At first the boys thought that he couldn't be serious since the weather was unusually mild for early January and despite earlier severe storms in November and December this day did not look like a day for a storm. However, they did follow his instructions.

Within a matter of hours it had begun to snow, a fine powdery wind driven snow. The temperature dropped as the wind increased and the constant snow and wind piled drifts higher and higher, some as much as 30 feet. It snowed and blew for five days straight. Although the early January storm was the worse, there were more storms in later January and into February. Total accumulations across the western regions ranged from 60 to 90 inches. From January the 18th to the 27th the temperature dipped below zero every day with the lowest recording on the 21st at 29 degrees below zero. Near Chadron, one rancher reported that the last snowdrift on his place finally melted after the 4th of July.

Uncle Willard told us that by the end of February he was cutting callouses from the palm of his hand with a pocketknife. For nearly two months he had either a pitchfork or a scoop shovel in his hands, most of every day and many nights, shoveling snow or feeding hay.

By the end of January more than two million cattle and sheep were stranded in deep snow throughout western Nebraska. This threatened livestock represented a potential loss of $250 million (nearly $3 billion in today's economy). Recognizing the severity of the storm and the potential impact of massive economic loss Governor Val Peterson declared a state of emergency in 29 western Nebraska counties.

Utilizing the unparalleled resources of a modern Army and Air Force, Brigadier General Guy N. Henniger, the Nebraska adjutant general, set up a command post for "Operation Snowbound" in the basement of the state capitol.

Transport trains of heavy equipment and needed supplies of food, feed and fuel flooded into western Nebraska from the east and from our Colorado neighbors to the south. During the recent war, the largest single deployment of dozers totaled about 350 units, "Operation Snowbound" deployed more than a thousand dozers that set to work clearing roads and cutting paths to stranded livestock and people.

In "Operation Haylift" U.S. Air Force pilots in C-47 Skytrains, C-45 Expeditors and C-82 Flying Boxcars airlifted countless tons of hay to stranded herds of cattle and flocks of sheep throughout the region. "Operation Haylift" flights came from Kearney Air Force Base and Lowry Field in Denver with assistance from Rapid City Air Force Base to Sheridan County and the Pine Ridge Reservation. The combined operations saved more than 4 million head of livestock, rescued nearly 250,000 snowbound people and cleared 115 thousand miles of road with a workforce of more than 6,000 men.

It was reported by the United Press, in the aftermath of the storm, that it was estimated more than 175 thousand cattle and 153 thousand sheep had perished in S. Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska through January and early February. In Kimball County alone, more than 10,000 frozen sheep were hauled by truckloads to a rendering plant in Denver.

No doubt you have heard uncles and aunts, grandparents, moms and dads tell their stories during the week of the 65th anniversary of the blizzard of 1949.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. To contact Tim email; [email protected]