The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-02-26
HARD WINTER HITTING MAINE A SEVERE BLOW
Worst Since 1883 - Snow Over Six Feet In Some
 Places

Bangor, Feb. 26.-Not since 1883 has the visible supply of snow in Maine been so great as now, and when it all me1ts there should be Q bigh run of tides in the Atlantic Ocean. Even the aged settler with the long distance memory who sits by the grocery fire and ridicules the efforts of the present to equal the wonders and terrors of the past is forced to admit that it looks like six weeks sledding in March.
 Maine doesn't mind two or three feet of snow on the level. She needs about that much in her business, but when it comes to four, five and even six feet by the square mile, and any where from ten to twenty-five feet in humps and spots,'' that delays I travel, uses up the town money in 1 breaking roads and makes log haul i ing slow and expensive.
 | The first six weeks of winter-that | is, from Dec. 1 to Jan. 15, there was l little snow anywhere in Maine except | up in the Aroostook region, but then 1 it came aplenty. January went out | with just the right depth of snow on ] the ground for good hauling every l where, and the lumbermen rejoiced. 1 But February has brought two big | falls and several flurries of an inch l or two, so that now the whole State l is buried beyond the resurrection of 1 all the blows and shovels from Kit 1 tery to Fort Kent.
 | Today the streets of Bangor are valleys fringed with snowy mountain l ranges. The street car companies l blows have cleared the right of way, l throwing up the snow from the mid le of the street to either side, and 1 now, except at the gateways made | crosswalks, none except the tallest | men can see more than the heads of i persons passing on the opposite side 1 walk. Roofs have collapsed under ! the weight of snow, fences are oblit-
 erated, wells hidden under six to 1 twenty feet, the ice in lakes and ! rivers sunken, cottages submerged to
 the caves in the crystal sea and
 country roads made hopeless for | weeks to come.
 | For days there was no train either
 way between Bangor and the north
 ern part of the State, and as travel
 by team is impossible, many a village
 off the line of the railroads is on the verge of famine. In many places
 farmers cannot get grain for their 1 stock, and with the wells and springs both buried and frozen it is difficult i to get even water for the cattle. Bangor physicians called to treat patients in the suburbs have been obliged to make the journey on
 snow-shoes, Dr. Harrison L. Robinson l going ten miles out and back in that | way to save the life of a child on a night recently. Persons living on the outlying parts of the city came down town to their work on skis or snow shoes, and many a high school girl
 saved her attendance record in the same way.
 Instances are numerous of able bodied men becoming stuck in drifts
 within sight of their homes in the 1 residential parts of Bangor, and one
 was near death when rescued.
 A trolley car filled with passengers, | including three women. was stalled
 for the night on the Charleston line
 six miles out, and only for the hot
 coffee and other comforts brought by
 people living near by they might 1 have perished. In Aroostook county
 several persons died of exposure
 when caught in the last storm, in
 cIuding one rugged woods teamster,
 whose horses also were frozen to 1 death.
 New York, Boston and other big
 cities occasionally have big snow
 storms but the snow doesn't stay for
 long, Tn Maine it is different
 especially in this thawless winter
 Every flake of snow that has fallen
 in this State since winter began still is with us, and at this writing there
 is not the least sign of shrinkage. PeopleS are wondering what would
 happen in the event of sudden
 thaw or a heavy, warm rain. Hip
 boots would then be in fashion.
 I