Snowflake Bentley

Have you ever heard the saying, “no two snowflakes are alike”?   Well, it’s true!  This discovery was made in the small town of Jericho, Vermont by Wilson A. Bentley in 1885.

     Mr. Bentley was a farmer.  He loved watching snowflakes fall on the farm in the winter when he was a boy growing up in Vermont.

It made him sad when the snowflakes melted.  His family and friends laughed at him when he tried to save the snowflakes.  Mr. Bentley wanted to photograph these snowflakes because he thought they were so beautiful and because he wanted everyone to be able to look at them whenever they wanted to.

He put a microscope and camera together and became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal, or snowflake. He took more than 5000 photographs of snowflakes during his lifetime and no two were ever alike!

Because of his wonderful work with snow crystals, he became known as “Snowflake” Bentley.