The Long, Hard Winter of 1880-81

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic novel The Long Winter tells the riveting story of the winter of 1880-81. She wrote of three day blizzards, forty ton trains stuck in the snow, houses buried in snowdrifts and a town that nearly starved.

Was Laura’s story just fiction, or was that one winter stranger than fiction? Was that winter really that bad, or was it just a typical old time winter stretched a bit to make a good tale?

Author Dan L. White examines the reality of the long, hard winter using contemporary newspaper articles, autobiographies and historical accounts of those who lived through that time to weave a fascinating story of the incredible winter of 1880-81.