The Children's Blizzard of 12 January 1888, Which Struck the Prairie at School-Closing Time
On 12 January 1888 an unseasonably mild morning lured children across the Great Plains to school in light clothes. That afternoon a violent cold front dropped temperatures by more than 20 degrees in hours and swallowed the prairie in blinding powder snow. An estimated 235 people died, many of them children caught walking home.
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