Almost exactly a year earlier in 1887 the "Great Die-up" blizzard hit Montana and Wyoming and killed half of the cattle on the northern plains. People could walk for miles and miles atop cattle carcasses stacked three or four deep on the fencelines and the carcasses dammed rivers. It wiped out all the great herds built up since the cattle drives after the Civil War.
It changed the course of history for both states as the great foreign-owned ranches were wiped out and smaller outfits took over. It set the northern areas back 30 years in development.
Catholics were caught in the anti-immigration wave early last century. There was a lot of anger vented with much of it directed at the common religion of the Irish, the Poles and the Italians.
The Catholics did the one thing that could reverse the stereotypes. Their relentless insistance on education for their children pulled them ahead of their contemporaries and solidly into the middle class.
There are still legacy Democratic / Catholic strongholds but they are susceptable. I am part of a group that is building the next generation of the Republican Party. We are hunting down the bright young kids with leadership ability and dragging them into the Party. When I am given a name and punch someone's doorbell the chances are better than even that I will be talking to a Catholic.
The Reagan Revolution was Catholic. The campaign was by Catholics and aimed at Catholics. Reagan's philosophy and base was Western Republican (Mormon) but it was Catholics that ground out the Reagan agenda.
The warbirds were in the air and screaming toward Damascus when they were recalled, largely because there was no immediate conclusive proof who was behind the attack.
Reagan's initial response was to go. He was talked out of it.