Historian's Corner



Charlene Cole
Sandy Creek/Lacona Historian
Historian's Corner
February 21, 2014

Photo: State Plow at Texaco Gas Station that was located on North Main Street, Sandy Creek

This photo brings to mind several earlier snow storms that hit this local snow- belt region we call home.

The winter of 1884-1885 was a long and snowy one.

Tales of the storms of 1878-1879 were that of winter legends. The Sandy Creek News reported, “The passengers of train number 1, Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad on December 24, bound north from Rome and snowbound for six and one half days in the romantic and classical snow clad village of Sandy Creek, desire before leaving the fair and festive Lacona to express their thanks to the hospitable and unselfish inhabitants thereof, particularly the jovial landlords of the Sandy Creek and Salisbury Houses who refused to take undue advantage of their snowbound fellow creatures.”

According to John Daunt, section foreman, the main problems with the drifts usually occurred at the “Old Sour Apple Tree,” a spot just north of Lacona that tied up one train for 14 days in 1877. According to a report in early January 1879, “it snowed so hard at Sandy Creek that people shaking hands could not recognize each other.”

The California Block burned on January 9, 1912 in a snow storm with gale winds out of the west which threatened to spread flames throughout the entire village.

The “mild precipitation” of February 1936 isolated the Twin Villages when the weight of ice and snow brought down dozens of telephone and electrical power lines as well as blocking roads.

February and March of 1947 brought blizzard conditions for three weeks of snow on snow, mixed with plenty of wind that piled drifts twenty-five feet high in some spots.