On this date in Minnesota History: June 12

June 12, 1873 - On this date, “farmers in southwestern Minnesota saw what looked like a snowstorm coming towards their fields from the west. Then they heard a roar of beating wings and saw that what seemed to be snowflakes were in fact grasshoppers. In a matter of hours, knee-high fields of grass and wheat were eaten to the ground by hungry hoppers.

The grasshoppers' dramatic descent was just the beginning. For five years, from 1873 to 1877, grasshoppers destroyed wheat, oat, corn, and barley fields in Minnesota and surrounding states. In 1876 alone, grasshoppers visited forty Minnesota counties and destroyed 500,000 acres of crops.”

http://www.mnopedia.org/event/grasshopper-plagues-1873-1877

Grasshopper Plagues
http://www.mnopedia.org/event/grasshopper-plagues-1873-1877