In 1930, there wasn’t a better place to farm than in the Southern Plains, where women and men turned undomesticated grassland into one of the richest regions in the entire country. The rest of the country was struggling with the actual effects of the Great Depression, but in the wheat country, farmers were gaining a record breaking crop.
With the beginning of World War I, the call for wheat had been beyond belief. Farmers were paid record prices. As a result, to the farmer, it made sense to turn every inch of the Southern Plains into profit. When the war was going on, the land produced millions of bushels of wheat and corn, which helped to feed America as well as several countries overseas.
Farming practices that made the plains so creative were beginning to take a toll on the land. The grasslands was deeply plowed and planted. During the years when there was sufficient rainfall, the land manufactured plentiful crops. Though, as a drought that started in the early 1930s continued, farmers kept plowing and planting with gradually dreary outcomes.
In the years 1930 and 1931, Oklahoma and Texas panhandles were known as the wealthiest states in the country. For plains farmers, the era opened with prosperity and growth. In the summer of 1931, the farmers challenged the most difficult eight years of their lives. The rain was finally over.
It took a thousand years for Nature to build an inch of topsoil on the Southern Plains, but it took only minutes for one good blow to sweep it all away. The water level of lakes dropped by five feet or more and the wind picked up the dry soil that had nothing to hold it down. Black clouds of dust started to splotch out the sun. There are some places where dust glided like snow, making the sky dark for days, covering well-sealed homes with thick layers of dust on everything. Dust storms overcame entire towns.
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