Where's the Beef?

New Year's Day 1886 - a blizzard rocks the upper Midwest that puts an end to beef on the dinner table of America for many, many months.  1000s of cattle die and 100s of cattle companies are wiped out in one of the worst blizzards in recorded history.

Texan cattle fattened for the market in Montana and the Dakotas could not survive the severe winter of 1886-87 and were frozen solid where they stood in the fields.  In a 1887 report, that winter found 80% of all cattle between Canada and the Rio Grande dead and it was the end of the days of the big cattle companies.  It was well into the fall before the cattle markets were back, and then at a diminished capacity.  A Delmonico steak on the East coast pulled a pretty penny for months to come.

Next - The Case of Mistaken Identity

And Then the Blizzards Came

Lawrence, KS Winter 1856 - "As the wind drove snow through the walls of soddys, the temperature sank to 20-30 below zero. Breakfast beverages were frozen on the table, bread needed thawing to slice. Settlers are surviving by makeshift tents of blankets around the stove."

Dakota Territory January 1888 - " The "Schoolchildren Blizzard" strikes during school hours. The morning was mild and warm with children playing outside without hats or mittens, reports one witness. Suddenly the blizzard came rolling across the prairie from the northwest with a loud noise - "looking like a long string of 25 ft high cotton bales, each one bound tightly with heavy cords of sliver".

The children barely reached the schoolhouse in time. The force of the blizzard lifted the school building from its cobblestone foundation. All of the children were safe and stayed for the night. By mid-morning the blizzard was over and the children set out for home through the deep snow drifts.

Buffalo County Dakota - Among the missing and presumed dead in the recent blizzard is a couple who were outside their soddy and unable to find each other in the blinding snow.

A schoolhouse caught without fuel, sent children to a settler's home some 140 yards from the school. It is reported that they lost their way and fell into a ravine. Half frozen and exhausted, they found a pile of straw and tunneled into it for the night. They all survived, missing the settler's home by only 6 feet!


Not sure where we are head next - farther west, maybe Dodge City and beyond. Stay tuned.