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25–27 January 1978
The benchmark frame: the storm-snowfall table for the South Bend station records 36.0 inches; the Governor declared a snow emergency for the entire state on the morning of January 26; the State Police considered all Indiana roads closed that afternoon; schools in Indiana were closed as much as three weeks. The town's share stands in one carrier: George Thomas's account in Railroading on the Wabash Fourth District, of a Norfolk & Western local crew working between South Bend and Montpelier — "we got to the depot at North Liberty and got stuck. We called the railroad and they said to stay, because of the bad weather. But we couldn't get back to the motel and didn't want to stay in the depot, so got permission to head back to Montpelier. With just a caboose in tow, doing about 30-34 mph, we bucked the drifts all the way back to Montpelier, and sometimes had snow up to the headlight!" The same account records brakeman Roman Reichle dropped in the country to walk home, who "about had a heart attack getting through the snow." The names print exactly as the published account prints them; neither man was independently dug. No town-government or town-newspaper account of the blizzard here was reached — the town's own paper had ceased in 1962, which is itself part of the explanation for the thin local record. Settler: the Independent-News (Walkerton) for January–February 1978.