The night of Friday, February 12, 1960, photographer T.L. Gunn stopped on Green Avenue and took picture looking southward down Fifth Street, the heart of downtown business.
His shot was soon printed on a postcard and has become one of the most well-known photos of Orange’s history because it showed something unusual, deep snow. Estimates are 10 inches of snow fell that day. Gunn’s captured moment shows the depth as two sedans stop at the intersection, which shows ruts left by tires.
Today, Southeast Texans are bracing for below-freezing temperatures, along with sleet, ice, and possibly snow. History shows this is the time for severe cold weather.
The Valentine’s Blizzard of 1895 brought more than two feet of snow to Orange. Drifts reached five feet or more, enough that a train couldn’t move. The severe front began on a Friday, February 12.
Four years later, in 1899, a cold front moved across Texas with freezing temperatures that lasted so long Sabine Lake froze over. The late historian W.T. Block reported the Dutch immigrants in Nederland used their ice skates on the lake.
Southeast Texas did not have a weather station, but the official U.S. Weather Bureau low that time was 6 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperatures were below freezing for three days.
That freeze also began on February 12, which was a Sunday.
Back in 1960, the late Mary Louise McKee knew the snowfall was historical, and she saved the three daily newspapers that many local families read. The Beaumont Enterprise came in the morning, while the Orange Leader and Beaumont Journal were afternoon papers. Her son, Tad McKee, shared the newspapers.
The Orange Leader had a banner headline in larger-than-usual type: Snowfall Is Heaviest of Century. The subheadline was “10-Inch Snow Turns Area Into Fairyland of Winterime Magic.”
Both Beaumont papers also had full, large type banner headlines. “Heaviest Snow Since ’95 Hits Area,” read the Enterprise. “Beaumont Digs Out After Snowfall,” read the Journal.
Reporter Bob Axelson, who later became the managing editor of the Leader, wrote the news snowy. He said the snow across Orange County was 10 to 12 inches with drifts surpassing two feet.
The “thick, moisture-soaked flakes started drifting down late Friday afternoon” and continued into early Saturday morning.
The high temperature on the morning of Friday, February 12, started at 44 degrees and continually dropped during the day. By late night, the thermometer dropped to 27 degrees.
The snow and ice were so bad that authorities closed the Rainbow Bridge on Highway 87 and the Sabine River Bridge on Highway 90. A number of car crashes were reported. A separate “bulletin” story gave the information that a 35-year-old woman had died at Orange Memorial Hospital an hour after she had been in a wreck on the Sabine River Bridge.
People who went through the great Valentine’s Blizzard were still alive in 1960. A story by Jean Saxon had the headline “This This Is Bad? Lot Worse in ’95.”
79-year-old Lillie Warren of Bridge City remembered 28 inches of snow in front of the B.C. Turner home in Prairie View, which was a settlement that evolved into Bridge City.
Currently, Rachael Parker has a clipping from the Orange paper in 1899 that her grandmother saved. The story is about Joe Weaver and a few friends taking a sail boat out on Sabine Lake on the Friday for a hunting trip. They planned to return to town on Saturday.
They anchored near the Catron shell bank on the north side of the lake. However, when they returned to the spot on Saturday, the north winds had blown the water out so far the sail boat was in mud yards from the shoreline.
“They were forced to spend the night on the barren shell back and, in consequence, came very near freezing to death,” the paper reported.
A rescue came. “George Livingston, brother-in-law of young Weaver, became alarmed at the non-appearance of the hunting party and Sunday morning he loaded a light wagon with warm robes and restoratives and started out in search of them. He found them on the shell bank and wrapped each one.”
T.L. Gunn started Gunn’s Studio. The business stayed open through three generations and almost 60 years after the snow picture.
His photograph of Fifth Street shows businesses lining Fifth Street. Only two of the buildings are still standing. One was the First National Bank on the corner. The Stark Foundation has offices in the building. The Southern Printers Building is difficult to see on the right between Front and Division.
Belile’s menswear is seen on the left, while Green’s department store is on the right at the corner of Main Avenue. KOGT had its broadcast studio on the second story of the building across Main from Green’s.
The Jack Tar Orange House hotel, only a couple of years old at the time, was at the end of Fifth.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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