A winter sky threatening snow is as unmistakably predictable for a person living in a northern climate as someone in Florida predicting an afternoon thunderstorm.

On November 30, 1909 in Delvin Lakes, Minnesota the threat had been building all day and the sky at 4:00 pm seemed low enough to reach out and touch.

Shortly after 4:00 pm the first large flakes floated lightly toward earth, taking their time before settling on fence posts, bird-feeders, dirt roads or any other random place exposed to the elements.

There is a feeling of relief when snow finally begins to fall, the oppressive sky produces something of beauty, covering the landscape in a pristine blanket of white.

Every few minutes during the 1909 storm, the amount of snow falling increased and a person paying attention would have suspected they were in the midst of a significant winter event.

After the first hour it was if an artist had painted the top of everything with a brush stroke of white. There was no depth to the accumulation and objects retained their form, but in the next 10 hours only the largest structures would still be recognizable.

Visibility was still reasonable, even as the volume of  falling snow increased. The snow moved in a mostly vertical pattern in the calm air. A person walking along Main Street looking skyward near a street lamp would surely have been impressed by the millions of illuminated flakes invading from above.

At 6:00 PM, two hours into the storm winds started to pick up and curtains of snow would suddenly move in one direction, reverse directions and then swirl around in a disorienting pattern. Familiar forms were losing their edges and becoming part of the flat white landscape.

The quietness among the storms chaos was deafening and the more snow that accumulated the quieter it became. The thick blanket absorbed all noise except for the ssssssss sound of ice crystals sliding across the top of the accumulation pushed by sudden gusts.

On Front Street the wind blew at a steadier rate across the wide open expanse of Delvin Lake. Large quantities of snow were being displaced from the surface, easily sliding on the black ice and piling up at an alarming rate on the banks below the dirt road.

At 8:00 pm, approximately 6 inches of snow had fallen and one of the first indications people in Delvin Lakes had about the severity of the storm was when the regularly scheduled 7:45 train from Fairview did not arrive. The station master in Delvin Lakes was informed the train was held in Fairview so as not to get stranded in the 50 miles of wilderness between the towns.

A person standing on Front Street at 8:00 PM looking toward the lake would have seen a total white-out, and that same person would have disappeared from sight if they were to have taken a mere 10 steps out onto the ice.

The drifts on the banks of the lake gained height and were approaching the same elevation as Front Street. Large gusts would blow the tops off the drifts sending what looked like small avalanches careening down Main Street, accumulating against any obstacle in their path.

Delvin Lakes Hotel was one of those obstacles and its six-foot brick wall forming its perimeter facing the lake already had a snow drift which ran its block long length and half its six foot height.

The only business on Main Street showing any signs of life was Jack’s Tavern located three blocks down Main Street on the right hand side. A few hardcore regulars were entrenched inside and had justified their presence as a better place to be than their own homes. The light reflecting out onto the snow-covered street from the mullioned windows of the establishment looked like a Christmas card from a distance.

Eerie moans could be heard intermittently as wind gusts rushed across exposed pipes or other openings turning them into temporary instruments in a creepy symphony.

Snow fell, edges softened, objects transformed into shapeless forms before disappearing under the pristine white.

Somewhere in the distance the sound of a shovel scraping against a sidewalk could be heard. Someone had apparently become impatient with the onslaught of snow and decided to clear a path from their door or maybe a walkway in front of a business, not realizing it would be several days before anyone would be able to move around town with any semblance of efficiency.

Fresh snow permeated every inch of Delvin Lakes on the morning after the storm. Roads had been transformed into wide swaths of smooth white only identifiable if running between homes, buildings or stands of trees.

Only two colors remained in Delvin Lakes the morning after the storm, the deep blue of a cloudless sky and a white so bright it hurt your eyes to look at it.

The blanket of snow had become a great leveler, small hills, valleys and holes in the earth had been filled in and smoothed out so only slight undulations in the surface could now be seen. Snow drifts were of every shape and size, the wind acting as a sculptor had shaped the angles, ridges and slopes of each.

It would be hard to imagine a scene more beautiful than the snow laden landscape of Delvin Lakes on that historic winter morning, but under all of that beauty lie the real life and death struggles townspeople now faced in digging out from such a mammoth storm.