Mars resident recalls Thanksgiving blizzard of 1950
MARS — On Friday, Nov. 24, 1950, the day after Thanksgiving, the front page of the Butler Eagle was dominated by headlines about the war raging in the Korean Peninsula. In the sports section, there was coverage of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defeat of the Chicago Cardinals 28-17 at Comiskey Park the day prior.
Amid the headlines — at least for that day — was news of a freak November blizzard which eventually dumped more than 2 feet of snow on Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, wreaked havoc on the streets of Butler County, and left a mark on much of the northeastern United States and some Canadian provinces.
Headlines in a Nov. 25, 1950, copy of the Butler Eagle boasted of a more than “20-inch fall.” The articles detailed how the snowfall halted traffic and how road crews fought the drifting snow. Another headline that day said the county was “snowbound” by the storm.
To this day, the “Great Appalachian Snowfall” is still the biggest snowfall to hit Butler County, according to records from the National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Program, which date back to May 1949 and have been taken from a station in Slippery Rock.
“Weather forecasters predicted today that from 10 to 15 inches more snow will fall before the storm subsides,” the report said.
A few storms have come close, such as one that dumped 13 inches on Butler County on St. Patrick’s Day 1956, as well as a storm that brought 15.5 inches to Butler County over a span of five days in March 1993, according to the weather service. A March 14, 1993, edition of the Eagle estimated “up to 18 inches” of snow in the 1993 snowfall.
According to contemporary accounts from the Butler Eagle, the storm reached Butler in the early morning hours that Friday, after a relatively warm Thanksgiving Day in which temperatures were in the 40s. By 1 p.m. Friday afternoon, the mercury plummeted from 39 degrees to 16.
“Traffic in the Butler district was at a standstill for several hours,” wrote the Eagle. “As the snow deepened more and more, autos were stalled on the streets and highways. Wreckers were in constant demand.”
In the era before radial tires were the norm, those without snow chains on their tires found it impossible to progress.
Lewetta Bell, 92, of Mars, remembers the blizzard of 1950 vividly. At the time, she was living in an apartment in Bradford Woods, Pa., with her husband, William, who she had married five months earlier. Their apartment was attached to a house occupied by a family of seven.
“It started snowing in the morning, and it just never stopped,” Bell said. “I had Thanksgiving dinner at my house and everything was fine. It either started through the night or the next morning.”
Bell recalls that due to the towering snow drifts, she and her husband were stuck inside for days. Worse still, the power went out at her apartment.
“Fortunately, (our landlord) had a coal furnace, so it didn’t get cold,” Bell said. “We had an electric stove, so I couldn’t cook. But the lady that we rented from had a gas stove, so I gave her all my food and she cooked and we all ate together.”
Over 100 men and 50 snowplows were sent out to keep the roads clear, but the crews found themselves overwhelmed by snow drifts.
According to Bell, she and her husband were trapped in their apartment for two to three days, as road crews were unable to reach them. The landlord’s family eventually took matters into their own hands.
“They didn't have snow plows and stuff like they do today,” Bell said. “There were two sons in the family that we were friends with. They finally plowed and shoveled down to a corner store and got some food.”
The Peoples Telephone Company found its phone lines so swamped by emergency calls that it was forced to implement temporary rolling blackouts of 30 minutes at a time on some lines. The exchange in Prospect was out of service by Saturday morning.
Also by Saturday, the Butler Motor Transit, which operated the bus system at the time, suspended all but three of its bus lines. All stores in Butler closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, four hours earlier than normal.
Even the Butler Eagle was affected, as only half of the composing staff could make it to the office. The Eagle was forced to call in employees who were supposed to have Saturday off, just to make sure the paper went out that night.
It took until Wednesday, Nov. 29 — five days after the storm hit — for most schools and places of industry in Butler County to reopen.
Despite the ordeal, Bell says she was not scared.
“My husband had a convertible, and he would go out and sweep the roof off periodically so it didn't cave in,” Bell said. “But it was fun all being together and eating together.”
They were among the lucky ones. Overall, the storm led to 383 deaths and caused $66.7 million in damage — more than $851.5 million in 2023 dollars when adjusted for inflation.
At least four of the deaths occurred in Butler County. Two people died of heart attacks, indirectly linked to the snow.
