On February 23, 1802 a great snowstorm raged across New England, by nightfall when the snow stopped flying, drifts in places near Boston piled up to 4 feet high. People were left to fend for themselves to dig out of places which efforts took nearly a week. This eventually led to the development of snow-removal practices. Before the mid-1800s, there wasn’t really any effort to get snow off roads. Before 1862, people didn’t use snow plows, they used snow rollers. The way people travelled through snow was by attaching skis to their horse-drawn carts and carriages. Snow rollers were huge, horse-drawn wheels that would flatten out the snow, making it easier for the carts with skis to move through the winter roads. But by the mid-19th century, as cities were rapidly growing in population, city streets needed to be entirely clear of snow for the business of the city to continue. And with this, came snow plows, first used by the city of Milwaukee in 1862. Early snow plows were horse-drawn, and would deposit the compacted snow in huge piles on the city’s streets and sidewalks.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.