Plains Indians

Before the Dust Bowl, the Plains states were known for their open land potential after Congress passed the 1862 Homestead Act. Millions and millions of acres of wild grasslands covered the Great Plains and was home to many different species of animals such as bison, pronghorns, fox squirrels, great horned owls, sandpipers, barred tiger salamanders, and ornate box turtles. However, thousands and thousands of farmers soon came to the Great Plains regions in hopes of finding success through…

The Native Americans of the plains struggled to survive as European settlers began to colonize larger amounts of North America. Battles between the colonists and Native Americans left many tribes weak and unable to defend their nations. The population of the buffalo that once used to run in large herds throughout the area dwindled close to extinction due to mass hunting. By the late 1800’s the plains tribes had been stripped of their lands, their resources, and their rights. They were sent to…

eastern Colorado and New Mexico, the Dust Bowl was a period where more than 100 million acres of land of terrains were denied from ripe soil leaving only dry grounds and hills of dust all around. The Dust Bowl took place around the 1930s in the Great Plains due to the farmers over cultivating the land and causing soil to erode, heat waves, high winds and droughts.…

caused severe dust storms that damaged the agriculture and ecology of the United States Great Plains. This was due to the extreme drought only made life more difficult. It affected many ranchers and farmers in the South like Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. This lead people to either staying with their farm and sticking it out or leaving everything behind to find a new job. In the book, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s, by Donald Worster her discusses the dust bowl and how it affected…

The Dust Bowl was a time where dangerous dust storms damaged the agriculture of the Great Plains. One hundred million acres were turned into dust due to overfarming and wind erosion. Three major dust storms occurred in 1934, 1936 and 1939-40, which resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil. These storms hit Oklahoma, Texas, sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico leaving many families nowhere to go .It lasted for almost a decade. Some say that this is the worst manmade ecological disaster in…

“The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red circle that gave a little light, like dusk: and as that day advanced, the dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn.” (Steinbeck 2-3) This is a paragraph taken from John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, a story about a family who lives during the Dust Bowl, loses their farm due to it, and has to move to California. During the course of history, the issue of soil erosion…

Under crackling thunder in the dark night cowboys had rough experiences almost every day! Cowboys drove cattle from Texas to Kansas during 1866 by horse in groups with a normal range of 10-13 people for money weather, little sleep, and little food was only part of the challenges that cowboys faced when they pushed cattle from Texas to Kansas for money during the long cattle drive. I would not re-up for the cattle drive due to weather, too little sleep, and rations and sometimes no food. One…

Even a small thing like dust can affect an entire country or continent, especially if there are tons of it. The 1930s, better known as “the dirty thirties,” was a hard time for many people because of the Great American Dust Bowl. From 1934 to 1937 drought came and later dust struck the southern states and many other parts of America. The Great American Dust Bowl was one of the most catastrophic events in the world. Even though the Dust Bowl lasted four years, it felt like it could have lasted…

Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn and the author Jim Murphy showed all the reasons why Chicago suffered the death rays of heat. First of all, most of the buildings were made up of wood. Wood is flammable and can make fire spread very easily. Almost every sidewalk in Chicago was made of wood as well, which would help out the fire. Some the buildings were made of stone though like factories, restaurants, and other buildings in the windy city but, they had a lot of flammable things in them…

The Dust Bowl began on Thursday, April 18, 1935, it was a huge, black, cloud of dirt, piled up on the western horizon. This storm was enormous and deadly. The Dust Bowl affected Oklahoma, Texas, parts of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. These states were vulnerable to the dust storm for their lack of rainfall, light soil, and high winds. As a result, soil lacked the strong roots of grass in order to stay in place, this made it easier for high, hectic winds to get a hold of the soil. Years…