Nov 22, 2025 By Brad Hundt 6 min read

Had Nov. 25, 1950, been a more typical Saturday night, revelers looking to shake off some Thanksgiving-induced cabin fever could have ventured to Solomon’s Hotel in Uniontown for hot sausage sandwiches and Eddie Slotka’s Orchestra, traveled to Dolfi’s Nite Club for James Ansley’s Orchestra, made their way to the State Theater to see “King Solomon’s Mines” or the Manos Theatre for “American Guerrilla in the Philippines.”

Odds are, however, that the clubs were locked up tight and the movie houses were silent that night, or if they did manage to open they didn’t have many customers.

That’s because the region was in the midst of a powerful storm that remains the stuff of legend. In the 75 years that have passed, there have been plenty of snowstorms, including doozies like 1993’s blizzard and 2010’s “Snowmageddon,” but there aren’t many that can match 1950’s Thanksgiving weekend blizzard for sheer destructive force or its paralyzing effect on daily life.

It was so bad, in fact, that “Santa Claus was forced to postpone his initial appearance in Connellsville when severe inclement weather conditions hit the district yesterday and threatened to blanket the area over the weekend,” The Daily Courier newspaper reported that Saturday.

Although the whole Pittsburgh region was walloped by the storm, it had plenty of company. What is now called the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 covered almost half the country and led to almost 400 deaths. In addition, there were 160 people injured as a result of the storm and millions of dollars in property damage. It was said to be the most fearsome snowstorm Southwestern Pennsylvania had seen since 1799. Forty-six inches of snow was reported in Washington County, and 62 inches of snow fell on parts of West Virginia. Mayor David L. Lawrence called up 200 members of the National Guard to help in Pittsburgh. In New Hampshire, winds reached 110 mph, a foot of snow fell in Dayton, Ohio, and record low temperatures were reached in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.

However, some areas were spared. Just 220 miles to the north of the Pittsburgh region and in the heart of the Lake Erie snowbelt, Buffalo, N.Y., didn’t receive a drop of snow and enjoyed temperatures in the 40s. On the other side of the country, the thermometer hit 111 degrees on Thanksgiving Day in Los Angeles, causing about 100 girls to faint who were participating in a drill team and band contest at the city’s Memorial Coliseum.

The National Weather Service has described it as “one of the most damaging and meteorologically unique storms to strike the eastern United States.” The storm hit almost a month before the official start of winter as a result of an arctic cold front combining with warm air from the Atlantic. In Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, the snow began in the small hours of Friday, Nov. 24, 1950, when the scent of turkey, stuffing and gravy was still permeating many homes.

“HIGHWAYS HAZARDOUS; SNOW COVERS REGION” was the urgent headline atop the edition of Uniontown’s Evening Standard that Friday. Twenty-fours later, the headline on the Evening Standard was even more urgent: “20-INCH SNOW GRIPS AREA; HIGHWAY TRAVEL PARALYZED.”

Other types of transportation were also stymied – ice formed over the rails in many communities, with some of it being reported as an inch thick and as “hard as granite.”

Many businesses closed up shop or never opened as the storm raged on, because employees were unable to make it to work. Some of the coal mines in all three counties operated on a limited capacity, and some miners were stranded because they couldn’t get back home. Lucy Fogg, an anesthetist at Uniontown Hospital, told Uniontown’s Morning Herald that she waited 36 hours to get to her job and “my final mode of transportation was a tow truck.”

While many residents simply stayed put in their homes, listening to radios or watching television sets that were just beginning to become fixtures in living rooms, others found themselves in more perilous circumstances. Residents in West Alexander, on Washington County’s western edge, started running out of food and residents stopped a truck that was making its way to Claysville to get some bread.

Also in Claysville, a doctor opened his home to expectant mothers so they could deliver their babies. One woman journeyed more than eight hours to make the 15-mile trip from West Liberty, W.Va. Other doctors made their homes available for deliveries, and jeeps, trucks, wagons and ambulances were deployed to ferry mothers about to deliver their babies to those houses or to hospitals.

“Despite impassable roads, the long-legged stork managed to continue in business during the storm,” according to The Washington Observer.

Doors were also opened for travelers left stranded by the storm. Twenty-eight people were marooned at a farm near the Washington County community of Ginger Hill. Food was a worry at the farm for a while, but, according to Monongahela’s Daily Herald, “Two men sent to another farmhouse couldn’t make it, so two more would go, each making the path longer. Then the farmer would meet them halfway and the men would drag the sacks of potatoes and other foodstuffs back to the homes.”

Some men who tried to make their way through the snow and ice weren’t as lucky. An Atlasburg man died of exposure during the storm, a 67-year-old in Charleroi was one of several men who died in the region while shoveling snow and a 65-year-old New Eagle man collapsed and died after he walked from his home to a store in Monongahela. Edward Momeyer, from the community of Ralph in Fayette County, died of exposure while walking home from the coal mine where he was employed. He was 31.

By the end of the following week, the region had largely rebounded. Main highways were passable, trains were moving down tracks again and schools reopened. And the front pages of regional newspapers again had headlines about atomic bombs and Korea instead of snow and ice.

An editorial in the Evening Standard on Friday, Dec. 1, 1950, said, “Just a week ago today, nature began cutting capers that made the old-fashioned snowstorms grandfather talks about seem like spring squalls by comparison.”

The editorial pointed out that some streets in Uniontown were still covered with snow, and suggested that residents have snow-shoveling parties to get the job done.

“From what we’ve seen and heard of this, they’re effective and well worth the effort,” it stated. “Streets are cleared. And in innumerable cases, people are getting acquainted with neighbors they’ve never known before.”