Stories from the 1930s Dust Bowl retold and re-envisioned for today: We believe that new artists’ interpretations bring history to life and help us remember lessons from our past. “Into the Light" is an interpretation by acclaimed artist Lori Holdread and we're offering you a piece of it. Purchase 1 of 200 NFTs of this artwork, and we'll donate the proceeds to the Leave No Trace Center of Outdoor Ethics.  

LISTENING TO THE LAND; lessons from the worst environmental disaster in US history

Introduction

The Dust Bowl was man-made, born of bad farming techniques across millions of acres in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. There’s always been drought and dust storms on the Plains, but the combination of overplowing, mechanization, and widespread homesteading left the Plains more vulnerable to drought than they had ever been in their history. Looking into our past, and seeing the consequences of our actions, can teach us lessons about our relationship to the environment today. 



Background - the consequence of not listening to the land 

The Dust Bowl was caused by economic and agricultural factors, including land policies, changing weather patterns, and farm economics. Following the Civil War, federal land acts incentivized farming in the Great Plains, which brought pioneers west.  

The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. These acts led to an influx of inexperienced farmers across the Great Plains.

Rather than listening to the land, there was a widespread belief that homesteading and agriculture would affect the climate of the Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming. The saying went, at the time, “Rain follows the plow”.  

Increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War 1 also encouraged farmers to clear native grassland to plant row crops. But as the United States entered the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. 

By 1931 the drought had arrived and crops began to fail, exposing the over-plowed farmland. Then, without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. This soil erosion led to dust storms and economic devastation across the Southern Plains.

The Dust Bowl peaks 

Severe drought hit the Midwest and Southern Great Plains in 1930. Then, massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further worsening the environmental disaster.

By 1934, 35 million acres of land had been rendered useless for farming, while another 125 million acres were rapidly losing topsoil.



People of the Dust Bowl 

The tales told by those that lived through the Dust Bowl days are horrific. Dust covered everything and would darken the sky, sometimes for days at a time. Cases of dust pneumonia, which caused chest pain and difficulty breathing, reached epidemic proportions in southeastern Colorado. 

The combined effects of the economic depression, the Dust Bowl, and other ecological disasters had a lasting impact on Baca County. Although some families were able to survive, primarily through the New Deal programs, many residents of Baca County left in hopes of finding a better life. 

For Kent Brooks, Baca County historian and local, the hard times these people experienced during the Dust Bowl continue to shape the communities outlook on life:

Those events really colored our worldview and how the people of the area look out for one another.” - Kent Brooks

Local rancher, Lyman Edgar (who passed away in 2016 at the age of 101) also recalled the Dust Bowl days in frightening detail:  

"In 33-34, the wind come up and whatever you done, you done before 10 o'clock in the morning because the wind would just pick up… you could taste it and everything else. The stuff rolled in; it was just like midnight…we cut up bed sheets around our face, cut eye holes in one of those things and put that over our face and dampened it… then we’d come back in after some time outside and wash the sheets out and go back out again. It’s just really unbelievable for people to realize it was that bad.”



Baca County lost 4,363 residents from 1930 to 1940, representing a 41.3% loss in population in a single decade. While many people moved, those who stayed have strong ties back to that era and even stronger ties to the community. Stories from that time echo the mix of toughness and community spirit that lives on in the region today:

Granddad got really sick during that time, their family friend (Bernice Chandler) drove his bus route to keep their family from starving.” - Kent Brooks 

Building Canyons & Plains - Works Progress Administration

In 1936 the Dust Bowl had peaked. The climate catastrophe hit southeast Colorado hard. The Works Progress Administration, a form of government aid, employed those out of work to build bridges, roads, parks, and buildings throughout the area. Today, many of these structures remain in communities across the Canyons and Plains region, harkening back to the Dust Bowl Days.

Change - listening to the land  

The events of the Dust Bowl led people to think differently about their impact on the land. New Deal programs were designed to combat erosion, to help farmers develop new, more environmentally sensitive ways to farm to the land. 



The creation of the Grasslands

In the mid-1930s, the Soil Conservation Service bought back a lot of the abandoned land that farmers walked away from during the worst of the Dust Bowl. The purchase of these lands was akin to a bailout for folks impacted by the Dust Bowl and led to the creation of National Grasslands. Having areas that are stable helps the landmass overall to control soil erosion. We now know that by maintaining and keeping the native vegetation during this current drought, we’re not going to have the devastating effects of the 1930s. 

The creation of Comanche National Grassland and Cimarron National Grassland, revegetation through conservation reserve programs, and no-till farming has changed the landscape of Canyons & Plains. While we still have issues, we have the tools to mitigate it, so we don’t ever repeat the catastrophe of the 1930s.

Lessons for today 

The lessons of the Dust Bowl are exceedingly relative as our climate changes and we deal with those impacts. We must think differently about the land knowing that we never want a repeat of that disaster. Now, even as bad as the drought is, soil conservation practices developed in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl have kept the nightmarish storms of the 1930s from recurring. The land has always told us what we need to know, we just need to learn to listen.