Temperatures sank to -25 degrees and the city worried about a heating source
SPRINGFIELD —On the fifth of February, 1899, Springfielders got a first icy inkling of what was to come.
The hints came in two stories on the front page of The Daily Morning Sun.
Atop page one was an item from Denver reporting that Colorado had endured 71 straight days of cold and wind and that there had been 35 snow slides or avalanches between Dickey and Leadville, Colo., measuring 200- to 500-feet long and 10- to 15-feet deep.
Tucked along the bottom of the page was a seemingly innocuous story — a day-brightener with the headline “The Little Folks Had to Go Home and Use a Tub Instead.”
The story was about locals who had become accustomed to enjoying free baths at Springfield’s City Building but had been disappointed when they’d showed up for their ablutions the day before.
Reported The Sun,“On the door hung a card which said the rooms were closed on account of the freezing of water pipes.”
The plumbers called in to fix those pipes would be busy in the days to come.
Look out below
The storm arrived in full freezing force four days later, on Feb. 9, leading to The Sun’s wonderfully understated headline of Feb. 10: “Not So Very Warm.”
Registering 9 degrees below zero at 2 a.m. on the 9th, the temperature plunged throughout the day “and kept steadily falling until 7 o’clock, when it reached its lowest point,” the paper said.
“Thermometers in various parts of the city registered from 10 to 25 degrees below zero, two reported at 28 (below).”
And that contributed to the most heated topic of the day, addressed in a story headlined “Mines Frozen Up.”
“A coal famine,” a smaller headline reported, “is very probably in this city within days.”
Shortage is the word we might use today, but “famine” hits the right register of foreboding and desperation the issue caused in an era in which coal was a primary source of heat.
“Should the extremely cold which has characterized the past three days continue until the first of next week,” The Sun reported, “the indications are that by Tuesday at the farthest Springfield will experience a coal famine.”
Three of the city’s four major coal suppliers were “very much discouraged” about the prospect of soon being resupplied.
Moreover, news from the Superior Coal Company at Jackson, Ohio, a major supplier to the Springfield area, were operating just one mine. Temperatures of 38 below at the Hocking mines had disabled the operation there.
And a Dolbeer & Sons advertisement indicated coal helped to feed Springfielders’ stomachs as well as their furnaces: “Rolls for breakfast or a roast joint for dinner are always baked or roasted with perfect satisfaction to the cook when our superior and high grade Hocking or Jackson Coal is used for your range or cook stove.”
The hobo angle
The next day’s paper provided some better news.
Temperatures had again plunged to 22-27 below, but had risen above zero during the day and managed to dip just below zero by The Sun’s press time early Feb. 11.
The historic nature of the storm was noted on the next day’s editorial page.
The cold of February 1899, The Sun announced, had eclipsed even the “year of the frost” in the 1850s as “the new standard to reckon from.”
Covering the obvious angles of the story, The Sun sent a reporter out to check on the status of Springfield’s hoboes, assuming “that the extreme cold would drive a great many hoboes to shelter.”
Alas, it reported, “such was not the case during the last week, the number each night being considerably less than at other times when the weather is more moderate.
“There were but eight in the hobo quarters last night, against a record of 40 upon one occasion during the present winter.”
However, on Feb. 13, the report came that C.W. Brown, “a hobo who arrived in the city last evening from Dayton, had both of his hands frozen. He made the entire distance during the afternoon without any gloves or mittens and his hands were in a bad condition. He was sheltered in the city prison.”
Plumb cold
In addition to news that the Ohio River had frozen solid at Wheeling W.Va., and frozen waterways around Pittsburgh were threatening a coal famine there, the Feb. 14 paper had bad news for Springfielders whose incomes were tied to the city’s convention business.
“Prospects are not very encouraging for a large attendance at the convention of the Plumbers’ Association to be held in this city commencing today,” the paper reported. “The extreme cold weather has so increased the demand for the services of this class of workmen all over the state that almost every house of any importance whatever could at the present time use a very much larger force than it carries under ordinary circumstances.”
In a brief item written to warm the spirits of its readers, The Sun suggested that giving someone the cold shoulder would have no effect under the prevailing conditions; that no one expected “a pure innocent thermometer could get so low down”; and that while a prayer to the Lord might be appropriate in helping the poor, “the plumber can help himself.”
The best news that day, however was that the prospects for a coal famine had passed.
Supplies were plentiful enough, in fact, that Herman Votes, manager of the Springfield Coal and Ice Company, said “a basket of coal will be given to every poor person applying at the office,” a practice he planned to continue, the paper said, “until the present cold spell moderates.”
Gas off, gas on
The cold had, of course, caused some trouble around town.
St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church at Yellow Springs Street near the railroad tracks had been forced to suspend services when heating pipes in the church burst the previous Saturday night.
“Should plumbers fail to complete the work” by Sunday, “the services will be held in the primary rooms, which are heated by natural gas.”
Those heating with gas had not, however, escaped the weather crisis unfazed.
When the weather was at its coldest, the natural gas main between Springfield and Urbana (Broke? Froze?), leaving the Urbana customers without heat for a chilly four hours.
Springfield’s firefighters and water commissioners were pleased with Superintendent V.S. Courson’s post-storm report that just one fire hydrant had frozen in the cold, and, upon investigation, it turned out “this was due to the bursting of a private hydrant but a few feet away, allowing the water to run into the fire hydrant and freeze.”
By the time of that Feb. 16 report, Snyder Park Superintendent E.K. McIntyre and his men had scraped all the snow from the park’s Broadway Lake so skaters, at least, could enjoy the accumulated benefits of the weather.
Said The Sun: “There need be no hesitation on account of the ice bearing up all that can get on it, for it is 14 inches thick.”
At last a warm welcome
The city had unofficially recovered from the storm by Feb. 16, when the Democratic Central Committee, which had been able to draw just nine to a meeting held when it was 18-below-zero, drew 20 to select a convention date for the upcoming campaign.
By then, enough plumbers had also arrived in town to make their convention a modest success.
The group had gathered at the Arcade Hotel and, with their guests, “were entertained at random at the bowling alleys and other places of amusement about the city” that, by then, was able to give them at least a moderately warm welcome.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368.