February 6, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry describes the 1895 Valentine’s Day Blizzard in Texas. Cattle froze, trains were stopped – but valentines got delivered! Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
On 14 February 1895 a massive snowstorm of epic proportions struck Texas, known as the “Valentine’s Day Blizzard.” It brought a record-breaking snowfall, especially in coastal areas like Houston and Galveston, of over 20 inches. Records were set that day in Texas that have never been broken.
The heavy blanket of white powder caused widespread disruption – but it did not stop the lady lovers from buying their valentines!
The cold snap and icy precipitation began days before. According to newspaper reports the area was hit by a 17-day streak of freezing weather before Valentine’s Day. However, the small accumulation of 3-4 inches of snow that Texans found extraordinary during those 17 days was nothing compared to what hit on Valentine’s Day.
Yet, despite the heavy frigid air and icy snow crystals Jack Frost forced on Texas, it was Cupid’s warm arrow that conquered the snowy day! The God of Love pierced the hearts of adoring lasses who braved the stormy conditions to flood the card shops, as the Dallas Morning News reported.
This article reports:
Perhaps never before were so many ladies seen on the streets of Dallas in a snowstorm. Today is consecrated to St. Valentine and they had deferred purchasing until yesterday, hoping that the weather would be clear. But it was not clear and the arrival of the heaviest snowstorm of years did not restrain the ladies from coming downtown and getting a supply of valentines. A News reporter counted 140 young ladies pass a single point in the course of three-quarters of an hour. Some of them left their impress on the snow, but all got valentines and there will be extra work today for the postal clerks.
This newspaper article also reports that many people were sleighing about the town, there were accidents on the ice, and an appeal was made to the community for warmer clothing for those less fortunate.
According to sources, shoe stores sold out of “gum boots” (rubber boots) and overshoes, as even the most sedate citizens took part in citywide snowball fights. Merchants, policemen, bankers, carriage drivers, doctors and other adults took the opportunity to launch snowballs at each other, to the delight of onlookers.
The following day the Dallas Morning News gave intel on the damage and disruption of the various locales that felt the impact of the blizzard.
This article reports on the effects of the blizzard in locales throughout the state of Texas. Here is the report for Orange in Orange County:
Veritable snow blizzard last night and today there were nine inches of snow on a level. At 3 p.m. in an open field quite level the depth averaged sixteen inches where there was no drift. At 6 p.m. it was eighteen inches deep in the same ground. There was some wind this morning, but since noon there has been none. The snow shows no signs of abating. Those who have known the country since 1822 say nothing like it was ever known. For the first time in the history of the county sleighing has been indulged in for a whole day. Every mill… is shut down on account of the storm.
The real proof is in the archives via photographs that have been preserved.
This next photo is labeled: “Snow 20 inches deep in the streets and yard,” and on the back, “To Elizabeth Ragan Spencer, with love from Mollie R. Macgill Rosenberg, Feb. 1895.”
There are nine people numbered and identified in this photo:
(1) Elizabeth Macgill Bridges (1874-1946), daughter of Clifford Cabell and Elizabeth Ragan (Macgill) Bridges. She married Graham Bruce Hobson and left descendants.
(2) Charles MacGill Bridges (1894-1945), son of Clifford Cabell and Elizabeth Ragan (Macgill) Bridges. He married Elfleda “Effie” Prosser and left descendants.
(3) Condi Roy Bridges (1880-1969), daughter of Clifford Cabell and Elizabeth Ragan (Macgill) Bridges. She married Dr. John Thomson Booth and left descendants.
(4) Caroline Washington (the household cook).
(5) Mollie Ragan (Macgill) Rosenberg (1839-1917), daughter of Dr. Charles and Mary Ragan Macgill. She married Texas philanthropist Heinrich “Henry” Blum Rosenberg.
(6) Elizabeth Ragan (Macgill) Bridges (1846-1930), daughter of Dr. Charles and Mary Ragan Macgill. She married Clifford Cabell Bridges.
(7) Arline Clifford Bridges (1889-1938), daughter of Clifford Cabell and Elizabeth Ragan (Macgill) Bridges. She never married.
(8) Frank MacGill (1851-1900), son of Dr. Charles and Mary Ragan Macgill. He never married.
(9) Alex (the household ostler)
Mollie sent the photo to her cousin Elizabeth Ragan Spencer, the daughter of Jervis and Catherine Ragan Spencer, living in Maryland.
Another photograph shows men with shovels working to clear Houston’s streetcar lines.
Here is the George Sealy residence in Galveston, Texas, photographed during the Valentine’s Day Blizzard.
In this next photo we see confused cattle walking down Pearl Street in Beaumont, Texas, after the Valentine’s Day Blizzard.
Here we see Lucile and Ethel Matthews bundled up in winter garments standing on a frozen pond in February 1895. The Lambshead Ranch, one of Texas’ most historic cattle ranches, is still owned and operated by the direct descendants of Judge J.A. and Sallie (Reynolds) Matthews. The Reynolds and Matthews families were pioneer ranchers and trail drivers who arrived in East Texas in the 1850s.
In this last photo, we see the Jessie Briscoe & Milton Grosvenor Howe home, 918 Austin at McKinney, Houston, Texas. Mr. Howe is standing on the upper porch looking out at all the snow.
According to weather experts the great Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 1895 stands alone as Southeast Texas and the Gulf Coast’s greatest snowstorm of all time.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Note on the header image: an English Victorian-era Valentine card located in the Museum of London, c. 1870. Credit: rgEbfucR4wKBlg; Wikimedia Commons.
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