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| USDA Public Domain |
The dust bowl in the 1930's was a very tough time. My great grand parents and grand parents were all in western South Dakota. The combination of drought, grasshoppers, and the depression caused economic ruin for all of them. Most people lost their ranches and farms to the bank. Prices for everything plummeted. Many people left, while most stayed.
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| South Dakota 1936 |
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Memories of the drought and grasshoppers in western South Dakota by my Grandfather John and Pearl Hullinger, exerpted from Memories and Milestones
johnhullinger.blogspot.com
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In 1932, there was a good crop in spite of hoppers, with lots of rain, and we raised 6,000 bushels of wheat, but no price. I had bought the first tractor in 1931. John and Lyle Hulce and I bought a combine, together, in 1932, and we had quite a time paying for them. It took every cent we could stir up but got them paid for in 1935. Cream was selling for 10 to 11 cents a pound for butterfat and eggs, 8 to 10 cents. We hoped to buy groceries with this. All this time I was carrying mail to McClure, every other day. Jack was born May 9, 1931, and is probably tired of hearing that that was the year we were first bothered with grasshoppers. They had come to other places the year before and I learned that they would not eat cane if they could get anything else, so I tried to plant cane all those years and have kept on since.
1933-34, The Grasshopper Years
There was no crop in 1933. Hay was scarce, but we got enough together to winter the cattle. Carolyn was born December 13, 1933.
The year 1934 started off dry and stayed dry, and the grasshoppers ate everything in sight and ate the rhubarb roots and winter onions down in the ground. They chewed the fence posts and paint off houses. All dams went dry and we had to drive the cattle to a well a mile and a half north of our place and pump water by hand for the cattle, which had increased to about 115 head by this time. By July, one could see no way to carry on. All over the northwest it was bad, so cattle were being shipped into Sioux Falls too thin to butcher. The market got so bad that cattle would not pay for shipping.
Governor Tom Berry saw the situation and went to Washington, D. C., and got legislation passed for the government to buy cattle in the drouth areas and ship them to where there was feed.
Pigs got so cheap that the feeders did not want them, so the government bought them at $3.00 a head and slaughtered them. They would weigh approximately up to 100 pounds.
Roosevelt was president and you still hear remarks about killing little pigs. But there was no feed and what happens to a fat pig anyway. Of course it was a relief project for farmers, as well as W. P. A. and C. C. C. I worked some in 1933 and 1934 on W. P. A., building dams and fixing roads.
I sold 78 head of cattle to the government for $15 to $20 for cows, $10 to $15 for yearlings, and $4 to $8 for calves. Some that were too thin were slaughtered and burned. Better ones were killed and given away to needy people.
Many cattle were shipped to Arkansas and Missouri from here. The 78 head I sold consisted of mixed cows, yearlings and calves. I got $835 for the bunch. They were good cattle, Roan Durham, and it was many years before we built up as good a herd. Only one calf was so bad it had to be killed.
I kept 35 head of good cows, thinking I could find feed enough to get them through the winter. I planted some Sudan grass but it was so dry it never came up until about the first of September. We had a light rain, and it came up a good stand in the lister rows where it had lain all summer with not enough moisture to sprout or rot the seed. Grasshoppers ate everything that tried to grow, so fall came with still no feed for 35 cows. I went to the eastern part of the state and drove for over a week before I found someone to winter them. I finally divided them among three farmers near Viborg, S. Dak. I gave one-third of the cows and any calves born there for wintering them from November 15th to May Ist. They were to be divided in the spring so the farmers would share in any losses. I got by with no loss but some who paid cash by the month had big losses. I shipped to Parker, S. Dak., and drove them on foot in the rain to the Viborg neighborhood, a twenty-two mile hike, but one man met me and helped part of the way.
When spring came it was still dry until April Ist, when we got a lot of rain and a fairly good crop. After dividing the cattle, I came home with the same number that I took down (after the calves were divided). The grasshoppers had plenty of foliage to eat and with the cane there was enough left for the winter and to carry over for 1936, which was another 1934 but with the carryover wintered very well. Doris was born August 6, 1935, and Virginia, November 4, 1936. That was a cold hard winter with most every one working on relief. Horses were selling better those years, so I sold a few and lost two from eating thistles and roots, so I was about out of horses. I got down to one team, so again I broke horses and mules for the use of them.
1937 seemed to see the last real damage from grasshoppers and we had good crops for several years."
Search Results
Massive dust storm sweeps South Dakota - Nov 11, 1933 ...
www.history.com/this.../massive-dust-storm-sweeps-south-dakotaOn this day in History, Massive dust storm sweeps South Dakota on Nov 11, ... The drought-ridden land of the Southern Plains became known as the Dust Bowl;History... South Dakota Dust Bowl: Drought and Depression in the ...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/southdakotahistory/.../721576317775378...South Dakota felt the harsh effects of being in the "Dust Bowl" during the Great Depression. View this slideshow to see an overview of South Dakota during the ...- More images for south dakota dust bowl
Video: Dakota Dust Bowl | Watch Dakota Life Online | SDPB ...
watch.sdpb.org/video/2298814145/Nov 1, 2012 - A look at how the Dust Bowl of the 1930's affected South Dakota. South Dakotans who lived through the dirty thirties describe their experiences; ...South Dakota Public BroadcastingDust Bowl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_BowlThe Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that .... Buried machinery in a barn lot; Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936.WikipediaLegacy | THE DUST BOWL - PBS
www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/legacy/THE DUST BOWL chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of ... Tripp County, South Dakota ...PBSThe Dust Bowl of the 1930s - Wessels Living History Farm
www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.htmlThe Dust Bowl got its name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. More and more dust storms had ... blowing seeds out of the ground. Dust storm South Dakota.Dust Bowl, Dirty 30s, Great Depression: Area man recalls ...
articles.aberdeennews.com/.../26440055_1_grasshoppers-area-man-milk...Nov 5, 2010 - "The Great Depression was the most cataclysmic economic event in the U.S. and in South Dakota history," wrote Ralph Brown, a professor of ...[PDF]Drought— But Not Dust Bowl - South Dakota State University
pubstorage.sdstate.edu/AgBio_Publications/articles/ExEx9001.pdfby M McCurry - Related articlesIn 2006, fears that the drought in South Dakota would be worse than that of the ... what was called the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the Dirty Thirties.Dusting off the Dust Bowl - Land & Livestock
land-and-livestock.com/2013/02/11/594/Feb 11, 2013 - Northern Plains Dust Bowl—Dallas, SD, 13 May 1936 In Donald Berg's view, the recent Ken Burns documentary about the Dust Bowl, like much
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