Historical Marker · No. 247
The Blizzard of 1888
Fillmore County · Nebraska
Erected by Milligan Community Club and Nebraska State Historical Society
Elsewhere in Fillmore County, a school held. At the Fairview School the teacher, Frank J. Stephenson, later recalled a window giving way under the wind and boys propping a bench against it, while the class kept calm by studying aloud and carried in coal for the night. Two farmers drove teams to collect most of the children. Stephenson spent the night at a nearby farm, and his sister tied her own pupils together and led them to a farmhouse. On January 12, 1938, Fairview's former pupils held a reunion and printed their letters and life sketches.
What the plaque says
The Blizzard of 1888 One of the most spectacular and harrowing events in the history of the Great Plains was the Blizzard of January 12, 1888. Other storms had produced colder temperatures and greater amounts of snow. It was the combination of gale winds, blinding snow, and rapidly falling temperatures that made the 1888 blizzard so dangerous. The storm's full fury lasted up to eighteen hours in many parts of Nebraska. Because of the suddenness of its onset, the blizzard caught many children away from home in one-room schoolhouses. In an attempt to rescue her two sons, Charles and Thomas, from school Mary Masek of Milligan trekked nearly two miles to the schoolhouse. Finding the building empty, she started for home, but she never reached her destination. She was found frozen to death huddled near a cottonwood tree, only a short distance from a neighbor's farmhouse. The Blizzard of 1888 created the scene for heroic acts. Mary Masek, like many Nebraskans, fell victim to one of nature's most violent displays while courageously attempting to save the lives of her children. Milligan Community Club Nebraska State Historical Society
Where it stands
40.51011, -97.38521 · Directions