Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite destinations. I would visit there at least once a year if I were able to do so. The drive from my home is a long one that winds its way through two possible routes both of which take me through small towns that sometimes look as though they have been abandoned. For a long time, what I did not know about such places is that they are remnants of one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the United States. These are areas in the Southern Plains where tall prairie grasses once boasted herds of buffalo that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They are in lands where Native American tribes roamed freely in concert with nature. They were once claimed by France and Spain. Originally they part of what was called The Great American Desert.
After Thomas Jefferson purchased a huge swath of land from France he sent the Army Corps of Engineers to survey the land and determine how useful it might be for pioneers hungry to move west. The report indicated that much of the land in the Southern Plains was uninhabitable. Thus it became known as a desert best left to the buffalo and the wild grasses that grew there.
The growth of the population of the United States in the years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War saw families continually pushing west in search of the American dream. Texas had gained its independence from Mexico and when it became a state it took on its iconic shape as it left part of its real estate to become the panhandle of Oklahoma. It stopped at the thirty sixth parallel so that it its borders would not go into the area that would have prohibited slavery.
The parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas that were adjacent to one another had mostly been ignored by settlers. After Native Americans were moved from their land, the territory became the domain of ranchers and cowboys raising cattle and horses on the wide open plains. The prairie grasses were a cornucopia for the livestock which roamed as freely as the almost extinct buffalo had once done.
With the coming of railroads states enticed farmers to settle in the areas that had once been thought to be unfit for growing anything but grass. With the lure of cheap land and a slice of soil to call home many Americans and even immigrants from Europe came to the strange places and set up homesteads in sod houses built underground. Aside from the German Russians who had grown wheat on the steppes of Eastern Russia, few who came were well versed in how to tame the land. All they knew was that wheat was in demand and so they began to dig up the grass that had secured the soil for thousands of years to plant the seeds of wheat that they hoped would provide them with the wealth they dreamed of owning.
What they found was uncertainty. Some years were wet and the wheat crops were good. Other years were dryer than anything they had ever witnessed and nothing grew. They were held captive to the whims of nature but they persevered. World War I gave them an advantage because the war in Europe made wheat grown there rather scarce. A boon for the farmers ensued that enticed more people to come to set up farms. As they arrived more and more of the land lost the native grasses.
The nineteen twenties were so good for the wheat farmers that they plowed up more and more land and took out loans to build regular houses to replace their sod structures. They purchased cars and pianos and put wall paper on the walls. It seemed as though the naysayers who had warned then not to count on the land for their existence had been wrong. Towns like Dalhart, Texas, Clayton, New Mexico, and Boise City, Oklahoma were thriving as more and more grass disappeared under the plow.
Then the dry years came in brutal succession along with the stock market crash that heralded the Great Depression. Not only did the crops not grow, but the banks that had house the savings for such years had failed leaving the farmers with no means of paying their debts or even purchasing food for their families. With the land lying fallow the winds created huge dust storms so incredible that they moved through the air like dark monsters. Everything was covered in dust including eyes and throats and lungs. The animals became weak and began to die. The people began to lose hope.
It has been difficult to read about this man made tragedy in the pages of an incredible book, The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan. I have seen the remnants of the disaster that occurred almost one hundred years ago in places that might have survived the ravages of the nineteen thirties but for human ignorance, greed and hubris. As with all tragic stories there were warnings of what might happen that were willfully ignored. It only took fifty years for humans to obliterate the animal and plant life that nature had so wisely nurtured for thousands of years. In spite of warnings from Native Americans, cowboys and conservationists the land was abused and its answer to the humans was to turn against them in the most horrific ways.
Those places through which I have travelled time and again became known as the Dust Bowl. The horror of that era sent countless families in search of new places to live out in California and Washington State. It created a massive migration of people who may or may not have learned important lessons about being stewards of the land.
Eventually with the introduction of better farming methods some of the area became fruitful once again but the scars of that horrific time remain and the dust still blows through the towns. Dalhart is little more than a dot on a map, a little place with a grain elevator and a set of railroad tracks. In some places there are abandoned homes that still sit on land that seems to have been forgotten.
I wonder if we have really learned anything about how our actions affect the places where we live. Drought has returned again and become a kind of plague of late and still the building goes on in places that are already showing signs of running out of water. Rivers and lakes that once brought irrigation are barely trickles. The aquifers that provide precious water are being emptied faster than they are revitalized. Will we humans once again ignore the warning signs and send ourselves into desperate times? Will we wait until the pain is brutal to honor the land and do the things that we must do to assure our own survival? I wonder and my thoughts become quite dark. The stories of the past are our warning. I hope we head them.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 