Here are a few more interesting items from that winter. I was living in an appartment in Evanston and remember my car being frozen and immobile for at least a month. I think that must have been during this time:
“The poor weather continued for months. During January, the temperature went above freezing on only three days and then only for a few hours. On the 14th and 15th, a record-setting temperature of -19 degrees F occurred. February was bitter cold and had no temperatures above freezing until the 20th. Thawing weather didn’t arrive until March 18th!“
Check out the photo of the elevated train coming into the Davis St station. That was a few stops north of the South Blvd station where I lived. I didn’t actually live in the station but the tracks ran right behind my apartment building. I remember the plywood snowplows they built onto the front of the trains. After a few days they started splintering and falling apart. It just added to the look of destruction that was all around the city that winter.
Any Chicagoans should check out this site as it has some really neat old photos of the elevated system in Chicago.