BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Just a week ago, Colorado forecasters expected significant snowfall in the high country for the days ahead, but as the week progressed, that forecast fizzled out, leaving the state’s ski resorts high and dry.
In contrast to this recent dry week, a different winter over a century ago brought the exact opposite problem to one mountain town—now a major Colorado ski destination: too much snow!
During the winter stretching from November 1898 through February 1899, over 79 straight days, the town of Breckenridge was buried in 20 feet of snow.
This legendary event became known as The Big Snow Winter. The town became cut off from the world, with train tracks and roads impassable.
To make matters worse, high winds created massive snowbanks and slides, some reaching several hundred feet, further compounding the isolation.
As a result of these intense weather conditions, the town remained isolated until the spring thaw allowed normal deliveries to resume.
The big snow event also delayed construction plans for new long-distance phone lines to be installed from Silver Plume over Loveland Pass to Breckenridge, according to the May 6, 1899, edition of the Rocky Mountain News.
However, work on the new phone lines began immediately after the snow began to melt in the spring.
Despite the harsh conditions, photos from the Denver Public Library’s Digital Collection show the townspeople made the best of Summit County’s record-setting snowfall event, digging snow tunnels to access homes and businesses and using skis to get around town.
In the Feb. 6, 1899, Rocky Mountain News, from the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, prominent mining man J.F. Sullivan told the paper what he saw in Breckenridge:
"I have been in Breckenridge and vicinity for over twenty years,” said Mr. Sullivan, “and for ten years looked after the government weather statistics, but never have I seen a more severe storm than this last one. In 1884 we had a big snow when the entire town turned out to shovel snow from Breckenridge to Boreas. I recollect a big six-footer named McGee, who was in the gang of shovelers, and he couldn’t throw the snow high enough to reach the top of the drift. The present situation is very much the same. If anything it Is worse, for the storm is of longer duration. It was blowing and snowing when I left, and the railroad people had all they could do to keep the line open on Boreas pass. This hill, just beyond the town, is particularly troublesome, as most of the snow sheds were destroyed by tire last summer.
“No one knows when the road between Breckenridge and Leadville will be opened-. It was reported just before I left that the rotary at work in a snowslide north of Breckenridge had crashed into a lot of timbers and become so disabled as to be useless. If the rotary is badly injured It will postpone the opening of the Leadville line for an indefinite period.”
Despite the current lack of snow, the community does not desire such extreme conditions as experienced 125 years ago.
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