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Historically Speaking

By Linda Thompson

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Way back in ’90, it was cold. It was 1 degree above zero in mid-December in McCleary. I mean 1990, not 1890. We thought it would be fun to check past news articles on our weather, so I asked Charles Fattig if he had any information on the subject. True to form, Charles came through for me.

Let’s start in January 1880. As reported in the Washington Standard out of Olympia, James Beck’s home was destroyed out on Beck’s Prairie. The paper reports there was “considerable damage to public and private property by deep snow.” The article reports several barns in the area collapsed under the weight of the snow. In some cases the livestock inside were unhurt, other farmers were not as fortunate. One farmer lost 40-50 head of livestock due to exposure. There is no mention of what the temperature was during this period. One man, Reverend Atwood, walked a great distance to reach his congregation. He said, “If it was not a pilgrimage that would make a preacher swear, it was the next thing to it.”

Rivers were rising, sending people who lived on the banks of the river to the upper levels of their homes, or even further inland, away from the rivers.

In 1907, logging camps were closed because of cold weather. Men, women and children all seized the opportunity to skate on any frozen surface with homemade skates.

The cold of that year prompted Ed Standard to look back at his journal entries. He had started keeping a diary at the tender age of 15, in 1858. In these writings, he found that the winter of 1861-62 was a “screamer.” January 17, 1862, the mercury dropped to 4 degrees below zero in Olympia where such records were kept. The snow was 20 inches deep on the level. Further research, beyond his own diary, he found reports of snow 3 feet deep and the temperature in the single digits, which was credited to a Chinook wind.

Storm damage was again reported to be widespread in and around McCleary in January 1912. A heavy snowfall was followed by an ice storm. The article sympathetically mentions that we were not the only ones cold that year. Thirteen people froze to death in New York, as the East Coast weather was the coldest ever recorded. Again, logging camps in McCleary were forced to close. Ice formed over ponds thick enough to hold a person, and pipes in homes froze causing even more damage.

The “worst storm in years” came in just a year later, in January 1913. A strong wind from the ocean blew down telephone and telegraph lines. Logs were lost in the booms at the harbor, railroad operations were hampered and once again, the rivers rose out of their banks. At the end of January, that same year, the headlines in the newspaper read “Cheer Up! It’s Been Lots Worse.” While the article described the weather as “disagreeable” and “rude,” it reported a snowfall lasting 20 days straight in 1893. The older settlers like to remember the snowfall in 1880. At that time, the snow covered the whole countryside to a depth of four to five feet.

With all the bad weather, there was a reminder to feed the birds. With several feet of snow and ice, birds faced starvation. Crumbs and seeds were scattered in an effort to help save the birds who, in turn, help man and beast with their high consumption of insects that could affect the farmers’ crops.

Cold weather and heavy snow were again a problem in 1916. Old timers agreed that the winter of 1916 was even worse than the winter of 1880, or any other winter in their memory. Andrew Beck lived near Mohney’s Prairie, 1 and a half miles north of McCleary, in 1880 and he could vouch for the bad weather both years.

A typewritten newspaper, The McCleary Observer, Volume II, Issue 3, dated Jan. 25, 1935, reports that floods threatened White Star dam. The spillway below the dam had been washed out and a good portion of the fish ladder was missing. Sam’s Canal in McCleary was taxed to its utmost but helped carry the floodwaters that inundated McCleary away from the town.

Remember 1969? Snowfall measured 33 and a quarter inches in the first 28 days of the year. A low of 7 degrees was reported during that period. School closure was on again, off again. The advice was to keep listening to the local radio stations and KOMO in Seattle to get the latest news of the closures. Roads were icy and caused several collisions. Cecil Whipple, Whipple’s Service, McCleary, reported that he had a few calls, but said people seemed to be becoming more accustomed to the road conditions and driving accordingly.

Personally, I remember 1989 clearly. We had moved to McCleary in December 1988. The first week of January 1989 it snowed, so I stayed home and didn’t look for work. The snow let up, but I didn’t start looking for work again until the first week of February, when it snowed again. Yes, I again procrastinated and put off looking until the first of March. And it snowed again. As it turned out it was just as well that I didn’t actually get a job because we had a family emergency that would have made me miss work. By May, I was out looking again, and there was no chance for snow and the family emergency was resolved.

Linda Thompson is the editor of the McCleary Museum Newsletter. She has been a volunteer at the museum since 1990.