A Train Stuck in a Wall of Snow (1881)
The winter of 1880 and 1881 was one of the most difficult on record for the upper Midwest. The blizzards started in October 1880, relentlessly and repeatedly pummeling settlers and Native people in the area until March of 1881. The snow drifts, like the one that trapped the train in this image, reached heights of eleven or twelve feet. The scale of the snow is especially noticeable when you compare it to the man standing on top of the car, observing the vast whiteness around him.
Trains were unable to reach communities in the western part of the region, depriving people of the food and supplies they depended on. Laura Ingalls Wilder immortalized the blizzard that stopped this train in her book The Long Winter, telling of the suffering, danger, and loss her family and the people of DeSmet, South Dakota endured when the trains couldn’t reach their community.
