Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1907 — TWO HUNDRED DEAD? [ARTICLE]

TWO HUNDRED DEAD?

Estimated Effect of the Terrible Weather Out in the Northwest Country. LONG LIST IN NORTH DAKOTA Settlers Not Prepared for the Arctic Weather That Came. Expectation That Many Will Be Found Dead in Their Cabins and Elsewhere Estimate Is Conservative. Minneapolis, Feb. C.—When winter loosens its death grip on the northwest scenes in the isolated cabins of settlers and skeletons on the prairies wilUfel) the story of how perhaps 200 persons have lost their lives in the cold and the snow. This is the most conservative estimate of the victims by railroad men based on past experiences during stormy winters. It is next to impossible to get news showing the full extent of the disaster. North Dakota Is a state of vast distances. Last autumn many settlers, lured on by stories of land agents, went Into the wilds with provisions, prepared to spend a moderate winter and to allow their cattle to run wild during the season of cold. The intensity of the cold and the unexpected snowfall have undoubtedly proven fatal to many of these, and their stories cannot be known until the spell of winter is gone. Thirty Below Quite Common. With very few exceptions there has been below zero weather In and about here for seventeen days, and for the past three days, beginning with Sunday, when the official temperature was down to 22 below zero, it has been in flint neighborhood. In North Dakota 30 degrees below was quite common, and this, coupled with terrific blizzards which raged almost without let-.up until Saturday, made living in the open anything but pleasant, and even indoors in some towns and in remote parts of the state there has been much suffering because tlie railroads have been blocked. For days the main lines of the Soo, Groat Northern and Northern Pacific have been blocked, and many of the branch lines have been completely at a standstill for weeks and months. This has caused coal famine in many North Dakota towns. Car of Coal and One of Beer. McHenry, N. D., sends in a telegram that there have been no trains since Dec. 18, and that ail fuel,’ Including gasoline, is gone and tlie farmers are burning barley and fence posts. A Fessenden. N. D.. special says that after a blockade lasting eight days the Soo lino managed to get a train through, and in that train was a car of coal and a car of beer. The latter shipment had been on the way for weeks, and its arrival when necessities were so solely needed was looked upon as one of the ironies of the situation. The country in that district is in need of fuel.