WAUPACA REPUBLICAN POST

February 5, 1914

 

What the Stevens Point Journal Said of the “Open Winter,” Thirty-six Years Ago.

 

            It is natural to compare mild or cold winters or extreme weather conditions of any kind, with others that have preceded them; and that is just what many have been doing, in view of the unusually high temperatures that have prevailed during the past five or six weeks.

            Present conditions, however, are not unprecedented, as will be seen from the following weather items, which were published in the Stevens Point Weekly Journal during the fall and winter of 1877-78.  The items are given here just as they appeared in the Journal on the dates mentioned:

            November 17 – “The weather for the past week has been most delightful, and farmers, many of whom are behind with their fall plowing, are taking advantage of it.”

            November 24 – “About two inches of snow fell Sunday night – the heaviest fall, thus far, of the season.  A drive of about 1,000,000 feet of logs reached the boom last Saturday, Nov. 17, and this week are being sawed at Clark and Karner’s mills.

            December 1 – “Cutters appeared on our streets on Thanksgiving day, for the first time this season, but there is not enough snow to make good sleighing.  We never saw our roads in worse condition.”

            December 8 – “December 8, and the temperature has not yet been below zero.”

            December 13 – “As a rule the logging season in the Wisconsin River pinery and along the Wisconsin Central may be said not to have commenced.  Although there is plenty of snow in some places, the weather has not been sufficiently cold to freeze the swamps and low places.”

            December 22 – “A number of loggers who had crews in the woods have been obliged to bring them out and some have put the men at work driving logs that were hung on the banks of the river last season.  (In this issue of the Journal it was stated that A. J. Leadbetter and B. S. Davis saw a live frog in the road about sixty miles north of Wausau.”

            January 5 – “New Years was the last warm day of the season.  The frost Tuesday night put a stop to digging potatoes and setting out trees.”  “O. H. Lamoreux had twenty-five acres of land plowed on his farm near Plover last week, finishing the job Saturday, Dec. 29.  With one sulky plow and three horses Henry Cate turned over an average of three and a half acres every day last week on his farm in Stockton.”

            January 12 – “The thermometer marked 16 degrees below zero last Monday morning.  The first respectable winter weather of the season.”

            January 26 – “To say that loggers have become discouraged is to put it in the mildest language possible.  The weather on Thursday was like April.  We saw one gentleman on the street in his shirt sleeves.”

            February 2 – “Main street is as dry and dusty as in the month of July.  The flurry of snow that fell last Saturday has melted and the earth is bare again.”

            February 9 – “Last Sunday was a bright, beautiful day, and many were out walking in all parts of the city.”

            February 16 – “About an inch of snow fell last Monday night but the bright, warm sunshine of the following day took it away.”

            February 23 – “About two inches of snow fell last Saturday and Sunday, but it seems to have come ‘for one day only,’  A thaw set in Wednesday – and the snow was gone.”

            March 2 – “Weather warm and pleasant.”

            March 9 – “We had a thunder storm, accompanied by lightning, last Wednesday evening.”

            March 16 – “Garden spading and croquet playing on the lawns have not only been possible during the present week, but have been quite extensively indulged in.”