Snowfall in 1922 turns Takoma Park
into a Currier-and-Ives painting.

by Diana Kohn

The surprise snowfall of Tuesday, January 6, 2015 conjured up memories of snowfalls past, especially the double whammy storm of 2010 that introduced a whole new word into our vocabulary: Snowmageddon.

As it turns out, Snowmageddon was only the 4th worst storm in the DC region. The granddaddy of them all was the so-called Knickerbocker snowstorm of January 27-28, 1922. Tragedy struck when the heavy snow piled up on the roof of Washington's newest and largest movie theater, the Knickerbocker, causing the roof to collapse, killing 98 people and injuring 133 more.

But the winter of 2009-2010 ranks as the worst winter ever when you consider the total accumulation. Start with the Snowpocalypse (December 18-19, 2009), that in and of itself ranks as the eighth worst regional storm. Then Snowmageddon hit on February 4-5, followed four days later by Stoverkill. We ended up with a grand total of more than 56 inches of snow before winter retired from the scene.

Other memorable snowfalls include the President's Day storm of 1979 (third worst) that dumped 17 inches, and the Blizzard of 1996 (Jan 6-8), which shut down the federal government for more than a week. And there have always been the storms of late March, like the last winter that that threatened to bury the cherry blossoms.

Regardless of the decade, snowfalls inspire kids to grab their sleds and find a hill, and they inspire photographers to grab their cameras. Clearing the sidewalks can come later. Digging into the Historic Takoma archives, we turned up a few images from the city's early history that illustrate the universal enjoyment of winter's magic. For more images from the past: