Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1895-02-01
HOW II USED TO Be.
An Old Timer Kicks on the Dish.
watery Kind of Winters We
Have Nowadays.
Says the Place is Becoming a Trop-
ical Region, and Not What It
Used to Be.
Tells of Winters in Years Gone Bv
When They Had Snow, and
Plenty of It.
Not Like Old Times.

Not Lik Old Times.
1T don't look as though we were CO.
ing to have any great shakes o. snow
this winter" said an old-timer to a TR1R-
uNE man the other afternoon as he stood,
on the corner Of Main and Fourth
ntfests and watched the slowly falling
aaakea as they foated softly down
through the still air and finally settled
upon the whitened earth. "ffere it is
the middle Of January and past and We
haven't had hardly a sprinklin'-just
barely enough to owe the grodnd--ntt
yer good sleiehin'," and he sighed re-
~gretfully as though disappointed at what
he seemed to consider the dereliction of
of the elements. Then he moved out
farther from the shelter of the building
near which he stood, as though to enjoy
to the fullest the gentle fall of snow
flakes, and continued:
"Winters out west here aren't what they
used to be, anyhow" he went on, sor-
rowfully. 1T used to be we had at least
one thing we could count on to outstrlp
any other country and that was our win
ter. We used to be able to bank on 1t,
and we took'a sort of pride in the rip
%roarin', snortin', tearin' weather we had.
Forty below zero wal picnic Temporal
ture, and three or four feet of snow was
just average sleighin'. Ice in the river
froze clear down to the bottom in places
where the water wa at all shallow, and
the corner-stones of the brick buildings
got SO cold they had to be banked up to
keep 'em from crackin' wide open. But
it's all changed now. The river gets a
scum of ice on it like the jelly in a lunch
counter layer cake and there it stays.
The zero marks on the thermometers are
getting rusty from being used so little,
and SHOWS becoming a genuine pecu-
liarity. The weather's gettin' so blamed
tropical the deer don't ever bother to
OA0uSO UuOl1 AlOCbS anu Uu0 mOSQ lUOCS
are buildin' nests and gettin' down to
business for the winter season." aud he
took a chew of tobacco and discolored
the snow, disgustedly.
mo, sir" he continued, kicking his
foot against a hitching post to dislodge
the snow flakes, "the winters we used to
have are gradually petering out. Take
it back in the seventies and early
eighties, and we had weather in winter
time that was weather, aud no mistake.
One season especially we had a regular
old. stager. It commenced showing in
the early part of October, and didn't
quit till the next May. Come down in
fakes that looked as big as your last
half dollar, and corded up like stove
wood. It packed down SO tight you had
to cut it out with a pick:axe, and it got
so blamed solid and froze so hard hot
water wouldn't make any more impress
sion on it than on a stone fence or a
brick wall. All Of the open wells in the
country got showed full up to the top,
and we had to use a chilled steel drill to
bore down through it to water"
He stopped a moment to take breath,
glanced up at the sky as though wonder
ing how long the snow fall would con-
tinue, and proceeded:
"Out on the ranges the snow got so
deep that the buffalo and deer we're
roamin' around eight and ten feet above
the grass line, and starved to death by
hundreds. Gettin' down to it to feed
was out Of the question, and they browsed
about on the snow banks, now and then
gettin' a nibble, where the top of a cot
tonwood tree stuck out a little through
the snow. Travellers out on the prairies
had to sleep in the trees to keep from
gettin' showed out of sight and smoth-
cred in the night. The prairie dog and
gopher holes filed up so tight it took
the greater part of the summer to dig
EN- out, and all through July and
August, all over the prairies, you could
see piles of snow where the gopherf had
just finished cleaning out their holes,
and had thrown the snow out in little
white mounds"
LUCKILY, it was a healthy winter, and
only a few people died. Digging a grave
in the ground was impossible. The snow