in 1880–1881 there was a winter that people in the dakotas called the "hard winter". the author laura ingalls wilder wrote her book "the long winter" about that winter's story. it talks about one blizzard after another, and how it changed laura's family and everybody around her. the book is almost all true. her story of two men from the town of desmet, south dakota, going after some wheat stored some miles south of desmet in february 1881 is true, and ingalls later married one of the men, almanzo wilder. if the two men had not found and brought back the wheat, the people would have starved. the snow and ice thawed in april, and the railroads could start again. the train picture above was photographed on march 29, 1881, not far from desmet.