On February 11, 1899, the temperature in D.C. dropped to 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the coldest recorded temperature in the city’s history. Washington, and much of the Southern U.S., was about to experience a blizzard that left a foot of snow in its wake.
The Washington Evening Star, the afternoon paper of record that shuttered in 1981, published a special bulletin that will make you feel like a wimp for being cold today. (Even though it is pretty cold outside right now.) Here are some of the highlights.
Fourteen and nine-tenths degrees below zero was the record-smashing temperature registered at the weather bureau this morning. Never before since the establishment of the institution in this city has the mercury fallen so law in the thermometers. In 1881, the first day of January, a minimum of 14 degrees was recorded. That record stood until today, when it was knocked completely out and Washington given the coldest weather in its history.
After hanging practically 15 degrees below the zero point for one hour and a half, from 7 to 8:30 o’clock this morning, the mercury began to climb again and at noon had reached 6 degrees above, a rise of 21 degrees.
Should Show Pity:
Since the accomplishment of its purpose, the breaking of all known records for this section of the country, it is to be hoped the mercury will take some pity on suffering humanity and come from its hiding place in the bottom of the bulb. The novelty of the coldness has passed, now that new figures have been made for the old inhabitants to recall, and there is no more interest attached to the antic of the thermometers.
Hosea Lee, a small boy twelve years of age, whose guardian lives at 1819 New Hampshire avenue, was taken to Freeman’s Hospital day before yesterday with both of his feet frozen. The injury was so sever that amputation of both members was necessary. Back of the boy’s sad plight is a story of suffering which, if true, is hardly paralleled in this day of civilization and enlightenment.
Read the entire dispatch below, via the D.C. Public Library database.
