How One Settler’s “Hidden” Winter Room Became the Only Safe Place in the Blizzard of ’47
Mountain Chronicles
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They called it Werner's Folly — until the blizzard came. In eighteen forty seven, one German settler dug deep beneath the Wyoming frontier and built something no one believed could work: a hidden winter room that defied every rule of survival. When the deadliest storm in a generation turned cabins into frozen tombs, seventeen souls found refuge in the one place others had mocked. This is the forgotten story of how underground ingenuity saved lives the mountains tried to claim.
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We knew brutal cold winters and deep snow. Slept in layers of clothing covered with so many blankets we felt like covered with a mattress. Old iron pot bellied stoves barely radiated heat from wood and coal. My childhood was spent with my younger sister and parents. Father a WWII veteran worked hard trying to get our ancestral homestead ready for sale so he could move us into Trinidad, a Victorian town 4 miles away that had amenities we didn't in the country. I remember how most everyone had small root cellars. It was rough.
Once we get into January it will go down to 6, rarely lower, but the apartment is hard to heat. It is built for warm weather.
Over the weeks since October, my bed has changed.
From empty quilt cover to quilt, to two heavy blankets.
Next will be my electric blanket.
But by end March the temperatures will recover. Slowly the blankets and warm pyjamas will go into storage again, and I will be trying to find cool it's of bed, floor, anything cold.
How One Settler’s “Hidden” Winter Room Became the Only Safe Place in the Blizzard of ’47
Mountain Chronicles
102,805 views
Donate to help us continue posting 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/incognitoj4
They called it Werner's Folly — until the blizzard came. In eighteen forty seven, one German settler dug deep beneath the Wyoming frontier and built something no one believed could work: a hidden winter room that defied every rule of survival. When the deadliest storm in a generation turned cabins into frozen tombs, seventeen souls found refuge in the one place others had mocked. This is the forgotten story of how underground ingenuity saved lives the mountains tried to claim.