A grasshopper plague engulfed the Minnesota farmlands in the late 1870s. The people of Cold Spring, MN, called upon governor John Sargent Pillsbury for a statewide day of prayer on April 26, 1877. Over the next two days, warm weather allowed millions of larvae to hatch, but on the fourth day, an unusually late cold front brought snow and froze the larvae. Several months later, the grasshoppers fled, and local parishioners built a chapel to commemorate the event (pictured).
