Winter in Boston: Stunning Historical Photos Show Beauty and Misery of Snow from the Early 20th Century

Boston sits in a transitional climate zone where winters can swing from barely memorable to historically brutal. Summers are hot and humid, but it’s the cold season that has left the deepest mark on the city’s story. Snow typically falls from mid-November through early April, though it rarely appears between May and October. What makes Boston winters so unpredictable is the year-to-year variation. The winter of 2011–2012 produced only 9.3 inches of accumulated snow. The winter before that dumped 81 inches. In the 2014–15 season, Boston shattered its all-time seasonal snowfall record, originally set at 107.6 inches in 1995–96, by reaching 108.6 inches by March 15, 2015.

The photographs collected here document Boston’s winters across several decades, starting in the early 1900s. They show the full range of what winter meant in this city — from quiet, snow-covered parks to streets turned chaotic by storms. The earliest images come from 1906, when horse-drawn transport was still the backbone of city life and a heavy snowfall meant real danger for both animals and people.

By the 1910s and 1920s, Boston’s streets were a mix of horse-drawn vehicles and early automobiles, and winter made both difficult to manage. Horses slipped on icy pavement, wagons tipped over, and workers scrambled to clear major intersections. A 1916 storm required crews at the corner of Park and Tremont Streets just to keep the intersection passable. Storms didn’t just inconvenience commuters — they caused real accidents. In 1920 alone, photos captured a horse-and-wagon accident near the Common, a blizzard that broke a working horse’s shaft near South Station, and a police officer guiding a woman through blinding snow.

Not everyone suffered through the snow. Children found ways to enjoy it. In 1921, kids on sleds pushed through standing water to reach ice underneath. A February 1929 storm — described as the first real storm of that winter — left two people dead and 22 injured and buried the George Washington statue at the Public Garden’s entrance. That same decade saw Boston’s statues and landmarks regularly swallowed by snow, from the Garrison statue on Commonwealth Avenue in 1922 to the Hamilton statue on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in 1928.

The 1929 storm was bad enough to bury fire alarm boxes under snow — a real public safety concern at a time when those boxes were the primary way to call for help. Workers shoveling them out, clearing streetcar tracks, and digging paths through downtown were common sights throughout the late 1920s and into the 1930s. Harvard Stadium required a full work crew to clear snow ahead of a November 1929 game against Yale.

The 1930s brought more of the same. Scollay Square went white in 1930. Women on downtown streets used umbrellas to shield themselves from falling snow. Children played in Roxbury Park. In 1933, a single month saw snowfall on Mt. Vernon Street, slush-soaked pedestrians at Congress and Water Streets, and a fully snow-covered Boston Common. Crews shoveled Tremont Street near the State House. The Back Bay Fens, Beacon Hill’s Joy Street, and the Old Granary Burying Ground all appeared blanketed in white.

Cars were now common on Boston’s streets by the mid-1930s, and snow buried them just as effectively as it had buried horses and wagons. In January 1935, a single car sat completely covered on a Boston street. Snow along Route 27 in Medfield in 1940 piled higher than car rooftops. In Brookline, a woman named Patricia Mortimore cleared her windshield just to get home after a 1936 storm. And in the Public Garden that same year, a man walked past the snow-covered statue of Wendell Phillips.

The late 1930s produced some remarkable images of Boston under snow. Ski enthusiasts took to the slopes at Franklin Park in March 1939. Streets turned into obstacle courses, and a man was photographed digging out a horse and cart that year — a reminder that horse-drawn transport hadn’t fully disappeared from Boston even as automobiles took over. On Route 27 in Medfield in 1940, snow drifts rose above the tops of parked cars.

The 1940s saw Boston’s wartime and postwar winters documented in striking detail. A horse-drawn carriage moved past Faneuil Hall after a 1945 storm. A man shoveled snow off Fish Pier in February 1947. Concord Street sat buried in December of that same year. By 1948, the Back Bay Fens was a familiar subject for photographers drawn to the still, snow-covered landscape. Logan Airport became a recurring scene of disruption — a third consecutive snowstorm in 10 days grounded commercial and National Guard planes and forced the weatherman to predict eight more inches.

Winter into the early 1950s brought quieter scenes. The Public Garden lay untouched after a 1951 storm, and the Back Bay Fens appeared again in photographs from that year and 1954. A snowball fight broke out at the Public Garden. Children pulled sleds down Beacon Hill streets. These images show Boston’s residents making the most of what winter delivered, even as the city worked hard to keep itself running.

The mid-1950s brought another memorable stretch of storms. In March 1956, a lone pedestrian bent into the wind near Boston’s famous steaming kettle as the city absorbed its third snowstorm in a single month. A northeast blizzard halted all vehicle traffic, sending morning commuters on foot. Downtown streets filled with people walking through heavy snow. Three Boston youngsters stopped to sing Christmas carols with a group of decorative figures during one storm.

The early 1960s kept Boston’s snow removal crews and residents equally busy. Tremont Street recorded a near-record 12.2-inch snowfall in 1961. Boys in Needham showed up looking for snow-shoveling work. Young residents along the Winthrop shoreline played a dangerous game dashing away from waves crashing against the seawall during a storm. Logan Airport had a jetliner veer off a snowy runway in 1960. Washington Street, Grove Street in Beacon Hill, and Everett Street in Dorchester all appeared buried in photographs from that year.

Sports at Fenway Park were repeatedly disrupted by winter weather. In 1964, a weekend storm dropped five inches of snow on Commonwealth Avenue. A snow plow car went out to clear transit tracks in November of that year. The grounds crew once spent from 2:30 a.m. onward clearing Fenway’s field, and a helicopter spent five hours drying it — all to make the home opener playable. The Orioles still won 7–6 in 11 innings. In April 1967, snow covered center field. By 1969, snow removal at Fenway was underway in March, with the field visible through plastic sheeting near the scoreboard.

The Public Garden and Boston Common appeared in snow photographs across nearly every decade. In December 1966, the Public Garden was captured at night just before Christmas, with snow covering the paths and trees. The Boston Common Frog Pond sat covered in snow and lights in January 1967. A lone pedestrian walked through the Public Garden at 4 a.m. in December 1963. A sign reading ‘Please keep off the grass’ stood in the snowy Public Garden in 1974, half-buried and ignored by the snow itself.

In January 1966, Boston police officer George Floyd pushed a giant snowball out of traffic in the Fenway neighborhood. The Arnold Arboretum was photographed under snow on March 24, 1965, and again on March 30, 1970. At the city’s landmarks and open spaces, winter was not just an inconvenience — it transformed the landscape entirely.

Boston’s winters in the late 1960s hit transportation hard. A four-day storm between February 24 and 28, 1969 — the third major snowstorm of that year — left 26.3 inches of snow across the city. Commuters packed buses on Summer Street. Crowds waited outside South Station. Logan Airport ground to a halt repeatedly. An aerial view from the top of the Prudential Tower showed Boston buried in white looking toward South Station. Cars were abandoned on Route 128 in February 1969. A diesel engine derailed in snow at Topsfield Road in Ipswich.

The 1970s opened with more storm damage across the city. Commonwealth Avenue near Dartmouth Street recorded major traffic delays after a December 30, 1970 storm. An MBTA snow plow derailed on the Forest Hills to Everett line that same month, forcing shuttle buses between North Station and Sullivan Square. Harvard Stadium sat buried in snow. City Hall Plaza went white. Logan Airport kept sending snow removal equipment out to clear runways.

Through the mid-1970s, the routine of Boston winters continued. Fourteen-year-old Tony Blaides and thirteen-year-old Robert Landry shoveled a basketball court at Eustis Park in February 1975 while their friends played on whatever cleared space they could find. Eight-year-old Stephen Bagley stood on top of a snow mountain blocking Grew Avenue in Roslindale in 1975. Commuters waited for buses at South Station. Boylston Street near the Public Garden became a white canyon. The Fenway Park grounds crew cleared the field again. On a snowy day in 1974, school buses followed a police car along G Street to South Boston High School — a scene tied to the city’s busing and desegregation crisis that began in the fall of that year.

In January 1976, snow removal crews worked East 6th Street in South Boston. Woodbine Street in Roxbury was still unplowed at 3 p.m. Pinckney Street in Beacon Hill showed a line of snow-covered cars. By 1977, rain falling on top of 30 inches of accumulated snow turned Boston’s streets into icy, rutted channels. On Soley Street in Charlestown, a man hacked at a solid sheet of ice. On Newbury Street, parking meters disappeared under snowbanks. A stool saved a parking spot on Marine Street in South Boston — a Boston tradition when spots get hard to find after a storm.

The Blizzard of ’78 is the defining storm in Boston’s modern winter history. On February 6–7, 1978, the storm dropped 23.6 inches of snow on Boston over 32 hours and 40 minutes, bringing total snowfall to 27.1 inches. A highway in Massachusetts was completely buried. Washington Street disappeared under snow. People walked down Summer Street on cross-country skis. Cars on Day Boulevard in South Boston were dug out by car owners, MDC workers, and the National Guard working side by side. On Preble Street near Ward Street, a snow drift covered a car up to its windows. Dorchester’s Lyon Street was impassable on January 22, 1978. Revere Beach Boulevard in Revere sat buried. Workers maintained railroad tracks near Massachusetts Avenue three days after a January 20 storm that had dropped 21.4 inches. An ambulance, a fire truck, and shovelers all crowded onto Putnam Street in East Boston at once.