Western Winter In the light of our recent winter storms sweeping through our country, there was a time of even greater discord. January 9, 1887 was one of the worst days of the “winters of the West”. Nearly one inch of snow fell every hour for sixteen hours. Some reports recorded fifty degrees below zero.

This brought calamity and tragedy for the times. The ranchers in Wyoming, Montana and other areas misjudged their stockpile of feed for their cattle. Because of years of mild winters they had little concern for food worries. In the hot dry summer of 1886, there were little or no grasses for the animals. When winter came snows covered the land and hid the smallest growth. The cattle were already starving from summer; they did not have the strength to work through the snow to reach the grass.

To make matters worse, a warm front came through melting top layers of snow, but a terrible cold front followed freezing thick sheets of ice. This made it impossible for the cattle to eat for several months. The cattle even attempted to find food in a town in Great Falls scrounging for small grass and saplings the townsfolk planted, but it just wasn’t enough Towards the end of the tragedy, January 1887 had devastated the entire cattle population in the area. Over one million cattle had died. In Montana alone ranchers lost 362,000 cattle, which was over half of the territories herd.

Putting hundreds of ranchers into bankruptcy from the massive loss, this wicked winter brought an end to open range for the plains area. Changes were made and ranchers took up farming, made fences and fed their own animals. So cowboys became farmers. Now days we think little of those times but weather does and will always have extreme impacts on us to adapt to mother earth. —Direwolf