Depending
on how you feel about snow (or your job), we were either blessed or cursed with
some snow last week. It was estimated that about 2-3 inches fell on Geary
County last week, welcoming the New Year. Although 2-3 inches might seem like
quite a bit of snow for some, this pales in comparison to some of the bigger
snow storms that have hit the Geary County area. Now that we are officially in
winter, let’s take a look at some of the biggest snowstorms and temperature
drops in Geary County history.
Perhaps
the biggest snowstorm in the history of the county occurred on Saturday, April
3rd, 1920. The snow had been reported to have been falling for 24
hours straight before it stopped. After
a day full of snowing, an estimated 3 feet of snow had fallen on top of what had
previously been 6 inches of melted snow and ice from the previous days. These
records might be a bit exaggerated since there were not exact measurements, but
the devastation was felt in Geary County.
This
made it impossible for cars or human feet to travel anywhere around town. Everyone
in town was trapped in doors, which caused a mini-panic since April 4th
happened to be Easter Sunday. It’s hard to tell whether or not many people who
were left stranded attended church, but from the ads that were being run in the
Saturday edition of the Daily Union, services in all churches were being held. This
had been the worst storm recorded in the area since Junction City officially
became incorporated in 1859.
There
doesn’t have to be a large amount of snow for there to be freezing cold
temperatures. The blizzard of January 1885 was an example with reports of temperatures
hitting 25ยบ below zero. While there was quite a bit of snow that hit the entire
western half of the state, Junction City received very little. The temperature
in 1885 was enough to shut down the entire city, “Telegraph wires were all down
and communication with the outside world has been entirely cut off since
Thursday morning. Business has been almost entirely suspended and travel was
[deemed] unsafe.”
The
snowstorm of February 1926 seemed to leave the city as crippled as the
snowstorm of 1920. In the February 25 edition of the Daily Union, the newspaper
told of just how bad the streets in Junction City had gotten, “the big snow of
Wednesday night drifted the roads so badly, that twenty-five cars were stuck
Thursday between here and the county line on the ‘South Forty’ paving west of
town….By late Thursday afternoon the caterpillar tractor and snow plow owned by
the county had pushed though the seven foot drifts near Witts, and pulled six
cars out of the drifts…”
Streets
were so bad during the 1926 snowstorm that cars could not be used. The people
of Junction City got smart and found a different form of transportation that
helped them get around town after the blizzard, “ever since the big blizzard of
Thursday, old Dobbin [the horse] has replaced the motor car for a great deal of
Geary County’s transportation. Particularly as a means of conveying youngsters
to school and the back of the horse has come in very handy.”
In
the winter of 1983, Geary County witnessed 17 inches of snowfall. This single
snowfall made it impossible for any vehicle to travel on I-70. This was made apparent
when on February 3rd, 1983, the Daily Union reported that due to the
impassible conditions on the interstate, many grocery stores in town were
running out of the essential food items such as bread and milk. “Both Falley’s
Market and Dillon’s have run out of bread, according to both store managers,
with Dillon’s also running low on milk.”
Many
people were unable to make it to work for several days and kids had been out of
school for at least 3 days. But as always, the Junction City mail would not be
hindered by the weather, “about 95% of the city received their mail service
delivery on Wednesday, except for the ‘really bad areas’ such as Rockledge and
Rockwell streets…”
For
a bit of recent history, the snowiest month on record for Geary County was set
just 7 years ago in Dec of 2009 when 17.2 inches of snow fell. Before that the
record had been 14 total inches in February of 2004. In February of 2014, the
single largest single snowfall event occurred in the county when 10.5 inches of
snow fell on Geary County. That single
snowfall made it the third snowiest month. We might have had a quiet winter so
far, but historically the biggest snowfalls come during the first few months of
the year.
Of
course we couldn’t tell the story of all the snowstorms in the area, so if you
have any stories or pictures you would like to share with the Geary County
Historical Society, please feel free to stop by and share them with us. We’re
open Tuesday-Saturday, 1-4 PM!
This picture was taken at 7th
and Washington on Easter Sunday April 4th 1920
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