Memories-of-Erin

In the Winter of 1936-1937 Erin had a big snow
storm with lots of wind that made it impossible to
get through the roads. When it did stop snowing,
it got very cold. The temperature did not get
above zero for a couple of weeks.

The Town of Erin had one old crawler-tractor with
a plow, that broke down and could not be fixed.
Town Chairman Mike Powell and Supervisor Philip
Burg went to North Lake with Mike’s horse and
cutter. They took the train to Milwaukee to Drott
Tractor Company. They bought a new crawler-
tractor and plow. They were unable to get a cab
to fit the tractor that would protect the operators
from the severe temperatures. The tractor and
plow were delivered by train to North Lake.
Four men - Stanley Goetz, Leo Powell, Leo Navin
& Leo Ehr kept the plow gong around the clock
with two 12 hour shifts. It took some time, but they
finally got the job finished. They also had to open
some of the farmer’s long driveways so the milk
haulers could pick up the milk.

Ten years later, in 1947, Erin had another terrific
storm. There were some areas the Washington
County truck plows were not able to clear due to
the amount of drifting snow. One of the troubled
areas was the hill on Highway K between the Nick
Weber & Bill Burke farms. Washington County
hired the Town of Erin to do the job with their
crawler-tractor. The road was much lower than
the land banks on both sides of the road. The
wind blew the snow level with the tops of the road
banks.

Many of the local men, young and old, went
ahead of the crawler with shovels to break up the
hard snow. With a lot of help & determination the
crawler made it through!

Packing a lunch was not always a requirement for
these hard working men. There were a lot of good
cooks in Erin and the crawler-tractor operators
were often invited in for a hot meal.