A National Guard bulldozer works its way through a massive snowdrift on U.S. 31 near County Road 400 North on Jan. 26, 1978.
News from around Johnson County as reported on Jan. 26 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 1978, Johnson County residents were unable to receive the Daily Journal due to one of the worst blizzards in Indiana history: the Blizzard of ‘78.
Nearly 20 inches of snow fell on the ground across Central Indiana and winds created snow drifts as high as 25 feet during the blizzard that occurred 45 years ago.
On Day 2 of the blizzard, National Guard bulldozers helped plow U.S 31 between Franklin and Greenwood. The cities were cut off for nearly 36 hours before contact was reestablished.
In Bargersville, 34 people stranded on State Road 135 spent the night at the Bargersville Fire Department. In rural areas, rescue workers delivered fuel oil to rural homes. At the Greenwood city building, employees, firefighters and stranded motorists took shelter as travel became treacherous.
Franklin’s Grace United Methodist Church became a blessing for 21 members of a Chicago church and other motorists stranded by the blizzard. At the Franklin Healthcare Centre, residents watched as the snow got higher and higher.
“That snow is getting awfully high,” a resident said. “It looks like mountains on each side.”
The news didn’t stop though, as Journal staffers were on the job gathering information from all across the county. Utilizing four-wheelers, staffers made efforts to deliver the Jan. 27, 1978 paper in areas of the county where roads were passable.
—
Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2014
State investigators were still trying to determine the cause of a house fire that killed a Nineveh mother and her two children more than two months earlier.
1980
Police warned that teenage drinking was a worse problem than drugs a month after six Greenwood High School students were involved in a car accident. One of the students was driving while intoxicated.
1937
Residents across Johnson County were preparing for an influx of refugees as severe flooding on the Ohio River left more than 605,000 people homeless.
