“And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada
and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry;
twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed
over the mountains, hungry and restless – restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do – to lift, to push,
to pull, to pick, to cut – anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to
live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.”
~John Steinbeck, The Grapes OF Wrath
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Its primary area of impact was on the southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly effected, but nonetheless, the drought, windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In fact, the agricultural devastation helped to lengthen the Depression whose effects were felt worldwide.
The movement of people on the Plains was also profound. With tens of thousands of people migrating toward the west coast, thousands of ghosts towns were created and many of them still exist to this day.
Mainstreet, Inavale, NE
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