The+Dust+Bowl

The roots of The Dust Bowl stretch back to the Westward Expansion of the late 1800's, and the huge grab for land that took place. With land dwindling over time settlers took what they could get, leading to sparse land in the mid-west being snatched up quickly, and used for farming and agriculture that was nigh unsustainable. Overplowing led to the thin topsoil thinning even further, and a lack of crop rotation impacted the problem severely. But the true catalyst to The Dust Bowl was a drought, one of the worst on record, and drying out the thin and weak topsoil to the point where it crumbled to dust and blew away. Thus, The Dust Bowl began.

The Dust Bowl was characterized by the huge storms that would roll across the plains, massive gusts of dirt and debris that coated farmland and choked those unfortunate enough to be caught up in them. These effected over 25,000 square miles of heartland, and this was at one of the worst possible times. (Ganzel)

A short video on The Dust Bowl.

During the depression, farmers were hit with a double blast of economic issues. They had overproduced, and at a time where no one was buying their produce. Not because they didn't want it, but because they couldn't afford it, even with prices staying as they were. And with the dust bowl came one of the worst times in American history to be a farmer in the Midwest. With such bad conditions to face, many families and farmers fled, heading west to California. Oftentimes they would ride the rails, risking arrest just to find somewhere that hadn't been hit quite so hard. (Cunfer) The Dust Bowl didn't truly get its name until the fateful day on April 14, 1935 when Black Sunday occurred. Some of the largest dust storms to ever happen hit across the Oklahoma plains, some winds clocked at 60 MPH and above. It was after this day that The Dust Bowl was titled, and became etched into American History.