From the Archives: Blizzards of 1967, 2011

The Lemont Area Historical Society  has generously offered to share photos and accompanying information with Patch readers each week, depicting people, places and things from the village’s storied past.

Although we’ve had a brief dusting of snow and little sleet fell over the weekend, last Wednesday marked the 320th consecutive day without at least an inch of snowfall in the Chicago area, breaking the previous record of 319 days set in 1940.

But on Jan. 26 and 27, 1967, it was quite a different story, when the National Weather Service recorded the area’s biggest snowstorm. Over those two days, 23 inches of the white stuff fell on Chicago and surrounding suburbs.  

John Quinn of the Lemont Historical Society said that although he was only 5 years old at the time, he clearly remembers snowdrifts reaching all the way up to the eaves of the roofs in town, as shown in the top photo of Quinn’s grandfather’s house on Houston St. in January 1967.

“My older siblings could walk them up to the roof and then jump off into the snow,” Quinn said.

And, lest we forget – the historical society has included a few pictures from last year’s snowstorm that ended Feb. 2, 2011, as well as a couple videos Quinn shot in downtown Lemont that same night.

Between Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, 2011, the National Weather Service reported the 2011 snowstorm, accompanied by winds of up to 60 mph, caused drifts of two to 10 feet over the three-day period. The official total snowfall of 21.2 inches at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport made last year’s blizzard the third largest snowstorm on record for the city of Chicago.

Do you have memories of a big snowstorm in your lifetime? Tell us in the comments - and please share your photos, too!

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Discover more about Lemont history at the historical society museum in the Old Stone Church at 306 Lemont St. The museum is open to the public and welcomes visitors. For more information, visit the LAHS web site at http://www.lemonthistorical.org/ or contact lemontahs@sbcglobal.net.

The Lemont Area Historical Society also invites readers to share their photos of Lemont’s past, to be added to the LAHS archives.

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