Upon last weeks history crunch I learned even more about the Dust Bowl of 1931 that took place in the Southern Plains {wheat country} it was the time of record breaking crop, toiled and grown in the untamed prairie. You see, Washington wanted wheat to supply our soldiers for WW1 and this was the place to find it... the soil was so rich it reminded people of chocolate... so the grain was grown... and then the rain stopped... and the wind started to blow. It was the beginning of a battle between man an nature that would last nearly a decade.... that year the drought and wind took 800 tons of topsoil, was plain blown away {what took a 1000 years to "become", was dusted completely off in mere minutes to create a 100 acre wasteland} that is what became of the heartland... the Dakota's, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Black dust from Kansas, Grey from Colorado and New Mexico, red from Texas. Bone dry. Breathing dust day in and day out, families dying of Dirt Pneumonia, 1/3 of them Kansas' children. Eventually there was a mass exodus of 1/4 plains population...
1932: 14 dust storms....
1933: thirty eight...
1934: Livestock feed depleted, and the government began to purchase and destroy the cattle...
1935: starving jackrabbits by the hundreds devoured anything left in sight resembling meager sustenance... crows made nest of barbed wire... The day of Black Sunday... the world already crumbling around these people.... 1000 birds fled all at once proceeding the darkest blackest cloud of dust... 12 million tons of dust blew to Chicago {41 lbs. each person}... and then our Eastern states tasted, breathed, smelled as the wind and dark dirt traveled to Washington...
{Images}
In a land of high winds and sun, a country without rivers and very little rain... the government was worried about penniless refugees... but never the less the people were strong and their integrity mighty, worn and beaten by the wind they still stood, starved and broke... Hugh Bennett founder of the 'last man standing' brought in some hope, in what seemed a hopeless situation... government supplemented "practices" where the workers toiled bare soil dawn to dusk to prevent barren fields... they kept driving the soil with gas and instinct. Then in 1938, there was a 65% reduction in blowing soil, yet still drought... People were now only surviving on government work projects earning $1.35 a day, families and children surviving on beans and cornbread at best... Sundays, one worker fiddled in a band his hands so dried, worked, and cracked they bled... the thin thread of faith snapped for many... people just packed what little they had and left for California not even bothering to close the door behind them...
Finally... Spring 1939, the sky's finally opened, nearly a decade later, and released the rain...
...the dirt and dust was finally coming to an end.
And for those who still love the wind, as I always will, in remembrance of these hearty people and weathering days.
