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In Living Color: View snow-covered streets during the The Great Blizzard of 1899 in an image from The Charleston Museum’s “A Winter Wonderland in Color”

In Living Color: View snow-covered streets during the The Great Blizzard of 1899 in an image from The Charleston Museum’s “A Winter Wonderland in Color”
December 2021
WRITER: 

The severe winter weather event brough four inches of snow to Charleston and reported temperatures of 7°F



Charleston’s rooftops sit blanketed in snow in this image overlooking Washington Square Park toward St. Philip’s Church. Taken as a black-and-white image by local photographer Robert Achurch (1866-1943) during the “Great Blizzard of 1899,” it shows a man walking out of the park toward Chalmers Street in snowfall, a horse-drawn wagon visible in the distance. Also called the “St. Valentine’s Day Blizzard” and the “Great Arctic Outbreak of 1899,” this severe winter weather event affected most of the United States, killing an estimated 100 people nationally and bringing a mixture of snow and sleet to Charleston on February 11 and 12, with a reported temperature of 7°F and four inches of snow. The photo, colorized using AI technology, is on display as part of The Charleston Museum’s exhibit, A Winter Wonderland in Color: Snow Scenes of Charleston, through March 2022.