If I'm not mistaken you had a major super volcano located in Indonesia that erupted back in the 1870's which emitted mega tons of volcanic ash and sulphur dioxide that was released into the earth's atmosphere, in which cause significant cooling off and lasted for a couple of decades.

Thank you....extremely well organized and narrated. This was the winter that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about in THE LONG WINTER. We have a family joke about ''burning the furniture for heat''....no joke for those folks.

Thanks for the interesting post. I'm somewhat of a history buff. I've lived through some weather disasters myself, although none was as bad as this, so I can relate to what these people had to endure. It taught me to always keep some emergency supplies on hand.

Thank you for putting this together. Now I realize how some of my ancestors died in their 40’s & 50’s in Meeker County. Hard, hard life.

Imagine living in Minnesota during the 1800s and not having an excess of wood stacked in preparation for a bad winter... The level of shortsightedness a lot of the people had is concerning, considering I am probably related to some of them. This is a very well narrated video. Nicely done.

Growing up on a dairy farm in Minnesota not many winters went by without a good few snow storms. The worse I was in was in the early seventies in sterns county. We couldn’t get to the barn for over two days. It was a complete white out and couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Many others but that was the worse I went thru.

The perseverance of the people under those conditions tough breed survival reminds me of the books I read from Laura Ingalls Wilder the big snow

And we think our lives are difficult.

great days to live less stress no phones no eyeballs what a great time

I grew up in Mankato. My parents grew up on farms in Hendricks (30 miles West of Marshal). The Hendricks Centennial book has stories about Winter there-I believe about that Winter. When I joined the Army, I was asked where I wanted to be stationed: I said any place warm. I retired in a Alabama.

I remember an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" dealing with a huge blizzard. Was it perhaps based on this particular winter?

Laura Ingalls Wilder spoke of this winter in her book , "The Long Winter".. She lived further west in Desmet South Dakota.. The continual blizzards forced the railroads to shut down operations until spring.. In a letter Laura has written yrs later , she described the brutal winter & just how near they came to starvation... Twisted hay was their only source of heat & at dark they went to bed to save on hay burning... Hundreds starved & froze to death in Mn. & S.D. If you were caught out in a blizzard it meant almost certain death... I read this hand written letter at her home in Missouri... Its hard to imagine the severity of that winter..

Thank you for sharing this. well done

i was raised up in winona & have fond memories!!! Minnesota sure isn’t what it once was… love your videos

Thank you for a true story of America history,

That sounds like a horrific winter!

Nice documentary. Thank you. I have friends in Watertown this day. A follow-up documentary on the floods is of interest.

Another excellent and very interesting video - it must have taken you hours to put in all the little graphic details, let alone carry out the research for the info they were illuminating. Thank you. It did make me wonder whether if one knew from the beginning how very long the winter was going to be, then could you bear to grind it out when it was already became so hard quite early on..? Perhaps there is hope in not knowing and just dealing with things day-to-day as they come; alternatively, there might be comfort in the knowledge that all such things do, at last, pass - and summer does come again.

I worked a job in Red Wing Minnesota one time for two months January & February tons of snow and 10 below every morning when I got up to go to work. never again.

People gonna party no matter what.

Very interesting!

Follows the Little House on the Prairie book, about The Long Cold Winter.

since 1980 winters in Minnesota have been relatively mild.

Interesting and well done.My main concern from this is the recording of theft and dishonesty in "normal" people.

Men and boys worked for hours to shovel snow from the train tracks, often having three sets of men to raise it up beyond the 15 foot snowbanks (moving the same snow 3 times). Then, almost as soon as the snow was cleared, another storm brought new snow or enough cold winds to move the snow into new snowdrifts. So, the work was begun again in the same place. Some of the storms of The Long Winter were so brutal that pickaxes were required to break up the snow. If they were lucky, hot tea or coffee was available from time to time for the snow shovelers. But, no Gatorade or Red Bull or any of the fancy energy drinks we have today. Most of the time, I am sure the shovelers worked on empty stomachs, too, as the people in homes along the tracks were short of food themselves, so feeding armies of snow shovelers (with or without compensation) may have deprived the home dwellers of their own meals. All of this work for rather small pay and, perhaps if the crew boss was nice, a bucket of coal or an armful of firewood to take home -- if you had the energy or ability to even GET home. The financial losses to the railroads that winter were pretty staggering. Having to pay wages to thousands of men just to move snow again and again was costly enough. Thefts of firewood and coal to run the locomotives compounded the problem. The stories of railroad bridges being dismantled and the wood stolen and used for firewood meant major rebuilding of critical structures before trains could get from one town to the next. Most of the trains were stuck in place so long that, as the video mentions, water inside the locomotives could freeze resulting in disabled trains that required massive repairs. Despite massive efforts by the railroads, it still often took several days for the trains to get thru during The Long Winter and, depending upon what was loaded on the train when it began its trip, may not have had much useful cargo. For example, some of the trains in October or November arrived carrying loads of farm machinery and not loads of food or wood. Those trains that DID have useful cargo aboard likely got emptied out before they reached the farthest locations, meaning even if and when the train did arrive, it might have been empty of everything except the mail. Imagine waiting 10 or 12 days for a train, only to have it show up completely empty.

We haven't seen snow like that since the Halloween blizzard, and to think of all the snow shoveled by hand. 🤦

very ell narrated congrats

Now theres a winter to remember very well narrator. Being from nc I never have had a desire to move to Minnesota. If you were born ther thats different.

Ah the good old days!! I remember the 60tees. And 70tees deep snow and 30and40 mins plus temperatures !!!

Getting enough wood to burn to keep warm was a major problem.

How bad is it that in March -- with the end of winter presumably in sight -- people are using buildings for fuel to stay warm? Sheesh!

Eight of my grand nana children's young died of harsh snow 🌨️❄️🏔️poor life only four survived two boys two girls

That must of been the long winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about

Wow...

Imagine if the history of the snowmobile had begun years earlier powered by steam,,, how very useful it would have been during that winter. Though I don’t think that you want to tilt the active boiler of a steam engine around much.

This is why I move to Florida

hubert humphrey was very young when his dad told him this story..

Wow! Dam global warming even back then, they should have been taxed for horse farts🤣

Sounds like the winter of 2022

I had to shovel out my car in NYC in a couple of blizzards

I bet the temperature was subzero

I'm guessing there aren't many trees in Minnesota.

Hate to nitpick but wheat is harvested in July August at the latest.

In Little House Books Almanzo goes 12 miles to go get Laura Ingalls from her job at the school He went on a day with the mercury at -40degrees F. He went on a date. His friend told him "God hates a coward!". Imagine how cold it got after the sun went down.

Regarding taxes, how about if people want other people to dictate/"mandate" how the live to just voluntarily pay them and refrain from sanctioning politicians to use force/violence/aggression to take money from those who don't share such opinions, views, beliefs, prejudices, economics dishonesty or "false religion?" Sanctioning politicians to loot A to satisfy B is immoral; it is criminal.

hard scramble life

Oh that climate change crisis!

Fast forward to today, where most have such delicate constitutions that they idle their vehicles endlessly so that they don't have to endure a minute's exposure to ambient temperatures, winter and summer.

Survival is foremost so is 02..h20 body temperature Celsius Kelvin Fahrenheit..commida ayer.. Video life i 💘 YOUR ancestors too

Everyone’s getting hit by trains

Globel warming !

Back than america canada russia & russian nieghbors & china japan korean & european Western the worst deadly winter & poverty was high millions died of harsh cold snow 🧐😳😬😬😬 Desert people died of hot lack of water hot fire🔥climate starvation 🥶😱

That damn climate change...lol.

This Story Could Have Beef REDUCED To Less Than HALF The TIME, An Should Have Skipped Over The NON-Essential Stuff That Was Included.