“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” asked Francois Villion, a fifteenth-century French poet, in one of the most famous translated lines from French secular poetry. Remember you heard it here, reading a story about early Snohomish!
The historic image in the animation is a view looking east down First Street toward the corner of Avenue B, documenting the 1916 record snowfall. The horse drawn wagon is delivering ice! And the hand-lettered sign announces that the post office is open — located in the corner store where patrons have gathered to watch the photographer with the Snohomish Studio at work.
The snow began falling on February 4, 1916, and continued for three days, breaking all records, until measuring around 40 inches, carefully calculated by the drug store owner Lot Wilbur.
The contemporary image captures the first snowfall of 2012. The Blackman Building, on the left, and the Marks Building on the right are still in use today. Our current snowfall measuring only 15-20 inches, regardless of the trouble it causes us, is a feeble attempt at beating the 1916 record.
Changing the subject: Readers of these postings are invited to tumble along with me on my train trip to Memphis, Tennessee as our local blues band “Wired!” completes in the International Blues Challenge, February 1 and 2, 2012. Traveling by Amtrak from Everett, I will continue on to New Orleans for one of the first Mardis Gras parades in the French Quarter, then on to Los Angeles with a stop in Marfa Texas, where the film “Giant” was shot, plus several recent movies, but is also known for its contemporary art installations, which is why I am visiting.
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Perhaps I will miss a true record breaking snowfall!
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