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By: Bellefonte Through the Years Staff
The winter of 1911/1912 was comparatively mild until Thursday evening, January 4, 1912, when a blinding snow storm was followed with a drop of about fifteen degrees in the thermometer in three hours and by Friday morning it was down to the zero mark. High wind prevailed all day Friday and by Saturday morning the weather was the coldest of the year, the thermometers in Bellefonte registered from 3 to ten degrees below zero, depending upon their location. The cold prevailed all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the thermometer never rising above ten degrees above zero until Monday evening when another four inches of snow fell. Again the snow was followed by high wind and by Tuesday morning it was again very much near blizzard conditions. It continued to be cold but the predictions of weather men as published in Bellefonte's Thursday and Friday weekly newspapers were that milder weather would prevail the latter part of the week and the beginning of the next.
Quite the contrary actually happened. A blizzard started Thursday night, January 11th, 1912, and continued into Friday dropping 6 inches of additional snow. It continued growing colder and colder Friday and Friday night and by Saturday morning there were thermometers in Bellefonte which registered as low as 32 degrees below zero. A temperature of 22 degrees below was recorded at the Pennsylvania State College weather station. At Pleasant Gap, Unionville and Snow Shoe the mercury dropped to 40 degrees below.
Some of the Bellefonte schools had to be closed during the week because it was impossible to keep the rooms comfortable. Additionally, work on the new High street bridge across Spring Creek was halted "when the mercury got to playing around the zero mark and the wind blowing up High street like an express train." Work was not restarted until mid-march.
Saturday morning skies were bright and unclouded and it looked to Bellefonte's residents that the cold spell was over, but the temperature didn't rise much above zero during the middle of the day. By late in the afternoon the frost in the air was warned "old inhabitants" that they were in for another night of cold. By seven o'clock Saturday evening it was ten degrees below zero and at eleven o'clock it was down to 20. Sunday morning was within 2 degrees of Saturday morning. It continued cold during the entire day, but Sunday night it moderated and by Monday morning the weather was such that a person could venture out without fear of being frost-bitten.
Naturally, with such extreme cold there was considerable suffering in the community. Those who lived in steam-heated houses suffered through the cold even though the steam heat plant had nine big boilers in operation, each carrying eighty pounds of steam. A number of people had frost-bitten ears and fingers and frozen feet, but none very seriously.
A young son of Charles Snyder, of near Axe Mann, narrowly escaped being "frozen to death" on Saturday morning. He drove to Bellefonte in a sled to deliver milk. Unaware of the danger, he wasn't properly dressed for the weather. Exhausted, he was noticed by Frank Clemson (of Stormstown) in front of Potter-Hoy Hardware store on High street. Frank carried the boy into the store were he was warmed and "revived."
Most of the towns fire hydrants were frozen solid.
One of the worst things to contend with was frozen water pipes and as these were found in about one-third of houses in town. One local newspaper indicated that "the plumbers naturally reaped a harvest."
The extreme cold froze the pipe organ at the Bellefonte Methodist church, putting it "out of commission" for some time
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