1/12/2012:
The brand-new year has ushered in unusual weather, with record-breaking high temperatures and little snow. However, residents here know the winter weather is rarely so pleasant. Take for example, the winter of 1896-1897, when “records for heavy snowfalls and cold weather were broken,” where “stories are told of houses so covered with snow that only chimneys were visible....”
Throughout that winter, settlers struggled to cling to their claims, as outlined by the Homestead Act of 1862. To own their 160 acres, homesteaders were required live on their land for five continuous years. Consequently, they had much depending on their ability to wait out the storms. But some ran out of fuel, and there was no way to keep going in such dangerous conditions; they had to leave before their five years’ time had been completed.
But on this date, those men and women still had hope. Because of the weather, North Dakota’s Senator Hansbrough was able to help pass a joint resolution specifically for these people, allowing them a leave of absence from their land for three months “in those sections where climatic conditions and other causes of an unusual nature exist resulting in personal hardship.”
A similar winter hit ten years later – in 1906-1907. At the end of January, a newspaper report read, “For the past ten days the mercury has remained in the cellar scarcely venturing to reach even as high as the zero mark.” But not everyone was frustrated by the weather. According to the Minot Daily Reporter, one man, a weather observer, was glad to see a winter like those of old.
He did not seem to have much company with this sentiment, however; the cold and snow had outstayed its welcome.
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
Sources:
http://www.prairiepublic.org/radio/dakota-datebook/?post=9568
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead.html
Ward County Reporter, Thursday, January 17, 1907
January 31, 1907, page 1, Ward County