Removing Snow:

Each year, Oswego County spends millions of dollars to keep its roadways clear of lake effect snow with its tireless fleet of motorized snow removal equipment. Dealing with the snow wasn’t always so easy, however.

While today’s Oswegonians bear the burden of an annual snowfall average topping 200 inches, their ancestors had to do so without the benefit of modern equipment. So the next time you start up your snow blower, keep telling yourself that it could be much worse.

“We’ve always had snow in Oswego,” says National Weather Service observer William Gregway. “Most people in Syracuse didn’t know how much we got just north of them until the advent of television.”

The National Weather Service has maintained an observational post in Oswego County since the 19th century. Gregway keeps a record of venerable newspaper articles of notable weather-related events that have occurred through the town’s history.

Gregway recounts an attempted American assault on Fort Ontario in 1781 which was still occupied by British forces at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. The surprise attack was launched in winter. When American forces encountered lake effect snow, they and their Indian guides became lost in a white out. The group was spotted by a patrol that was collecting firewood just north of Minetto. The mission was aborted, but not before several members of the force succumbed to exposure.

As the port city became more developed, the town’s denizens needed to devise ways in which to navigate the snowbound city streets. One of the more reliable low-tech solutions was used to evacuate a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. “A lake effect storm came in and it took over a day to get the ladies home by sleigh,” says Gregway.

Techniques were developed to make snow-covered streets more conducive to passage by sleigh. “The streets were rolled, not plowed,” explains Gregway.

An early version of the plow was introduced to the Bridge Street trolley in the form of a large, revolving broom. The broom swept the snow from the tracks, which were at grade, to either side of the street. This created a difference in grade, often in feet, between the tracks and the rolled roadways used by carriages and sleighs.