Valentine's Day Blizzard 1895 still keeps snow record

In the year 2025, people across Orange County were huddled inside as heavy snow fell, temperatures dropped into the teens, and the winds blew. This year will be setting snow and cold records, but will not top the "Valentine's Day Blizzard" of 1895.

An estimated 31 inches of snow dropped in Orange on February 14-15 that year. The snow was so deep that railroad cars couldn't move and cattle were buried and froze. The Texas Almanac says "what is probably the greatest heavy-snow anomaly in the climatic history of the U.S. resulted from a snowstorm along the Texas coast on the 14th and 15th." Snow even fell as far south as Brownsville, which received five inches.

The late historian W.T. Block (1920-2007) wrote in 1979 that 31 inches of snow fell in 24 hours, paralyzing Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. He said that D.R. Wingate, who had lived in Orange since 1852, was quoted as saying "the past six days have had more arctic weather in them than I have experienced in any week in forty years."

Block also found a story in The Galveston Daily News about how the locomotive in the switching yards in Orange "could not plow its way through the snow that averaged 24 inches on top of the rails...In some places, snow drifted to a depth of six feet and effectively blocked traffic at every (lumber) mill along the river."

According to Block's story, the estimated depth of the snow was between 30 and 36 inches based on how far the snow reached up the locomotive.

The depth of the snow shut down the town in those days when horses were used. Block imagined "every pot-bellied stove glowed a cherry red as each person sought to ward off the bitter cold." He pointed out that firewood would not have been a problem because sawmills had large amounts of waste-wood products that people could get for free.

In addition, people here had coal-burning stoves because the newspaper had stores advertising coal stoves and dealers advertising coal for sale.

The Orange newspaper in 1960, during another big snow, interviewed 79-year-old Lillie Warren of Bridge City. She would have been 14 at the time of the blizzard. She remembered 28 inches of snow in front of the B.C. Turner home in Prairie View, which was a settlement that evolved into Bridge City.

The first known photograph of the W.H. Stark House on Green Avenue is of the house in the 1895 blizzard. Construction on the 14,000 square foot house began in 1893.

February has historically been the month of the coldest weather, mainly during the middle of the month. In 1899, four years after the Valentine's Day Blizzard, a record cold came.

The Texas Almanac reports that on February 11-13 that year "a disastrous cold wave went throughout the state. Newspapers described it as the worst freeze ever known in the state."

The temperature in Southeast Texas was around 8 degrees Fahrenheit for almost three days. It was so cold that Sabine Lake froze over. Block wrote that the new Dutch immigrants to the area that became Nederland, got to use the ice skates they had brought with them from their homeland. They skated on Sabine Lake.

The historian found a Galveston Daily News story that reported "large quantities of fine ocean trout were picked up on the beach Tuesday and Wednesday. They had become helplessly benumbed in the cold waters, and were soon washed ashore by the beach tides, where they quickly froze." The speckled trout were reported to weigh from three to nine pounds each. Block said that in Sabine Pass, residents were shoveling the fish into wagons.

The Beaumont Enterprise from that time reported Sabine Pass froze enough that ice extended from Texas across to Louisiana. Two schooners, mid-size sailing boats, sank after ice floes put holes in them.

Though the 1899 Orange newspaper is not available online, Rachel Parker has Leader clipping from the hard freeze. The story tells how Joe Weaver and friends took a sail boat on Sabine Lake on that Friday to go hunting.

They anchored near the Catron shell bank on the north side of the lake. However, when they returned to the spot on Saturday, the north winds had blown the water out so far the sail boat was in mud yards from the shoreline.

"They were forced to spend the night on the barren shell bank and, in consequence, came very near freezing to death," the paper reported.

A rescue came. "George Livingston, brother-in-law of young Weaver, became alarmed at the non-appearance of the hunting party and Sunday morning he loaded a light wagon with warm robes, quilts and restoratives and started out in search of them. He found them on the shell bank and wrapped each one."

Besides the record snow of 1895, 1960 has been at the second of the list of heavy Orange County snowfalls. An estimated 10 to 12 inches fell on February 12-13, again in the middle of February. Friday, February 12, started at 44 degrees and started dropping in the morning.

Snowflakes began falling in the afternoon near the times schools were to be released. By late that night, the temperature was 27 degrees and Orange County was blanketed in snow.