Content Warning: This book includes descriptions of natural disaster, specifically a snowstorm. It also describes deaths of adults and children by exposure.

The Prologue gives an overview of the event and describes many of the contributing factors and background information that will be discussed in further depth in future chapters.

A blizzard broke out over the center of North America on January 12, 1888. Seemingly out of nowhere, a “roar” sounded from the sky and a huge wall of blinding snow hit the prairies of the Great Plains states. The cold front sped down southward, first leveling Montana, then North Dakota, then South Dakota. Nebraska fell last, but all of the states were hit before 3 pm. An unseasonably warm morning became a deadly freeze, with windchill levels of -40 degrees Fahrenheit. By the 13th, hundreds of people caught in the blizzard lay dead in the snow. Many of those victims were children trying to navigate the storm to get home from school. These tragic young victims inspired the event’s name: the Children’s Blizzard.

This blizzard, far from simply being a tragedy, was also a reckoning for America. For decades, the grasslands in the center of America were ignored in favor of the coasts.