**PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A VIRTUAL PROGRAM THAT WILL TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM. Registrants will receive a link to access the Zoom Webinar via email.**

This presentation focuses on the railroad blockades that kept food and fuel from reaching the newly-formed towns in southwestern Minnesota and southeastern Dakota Territory during the Hard Winter of 1880-81. Using the newspaper record, historic photographs, railroad maps, drone photography and video, this presentation introduces the factors that caused the tracks to clog with snow, preventing the trains from running. After delving into the weather that was so difficult that winter, we will then go through the struggle to fight the drifts that blocked the trains.

About Cindy Wilson: Cindy Wilson is the author of The Beautiful Snow: The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880–81, which was awarded gold in the category of Midwest—Best Regional Non-Fiction for the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards (the IPPYs). It was also a 2020 finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards. In the early research stage for The Beautiful Snow, Cindy read the diaries of surveyor Charles Wood Irish. She found them fascinating, knowing they held a fantastic story. The result is We Suffered Much.

RECORDING NOTE: This program will be recorded. All registrants will receive the recording via email within 48 hours of the program.

Presented in partnership with Chelmsford Public Library.

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