Drought was nothing new to the farmers of western Kansas. Since
their fathers and grandfathers had settled there in the 1870s,
there had been dry periods interspersed with times of sufficient
rainfall. But the drought that descended on the Central Plains
in 1931 was more severe than most could remember. Many factors
led to the Dust Bowl. The increased demand for wheat during
World War I, the development of new mechanized farm machinery
along with falling wheat prices in the 1920s, led to millions of
acres of native grassland being replaced by heavily disked
fields of straight row crops. Four years of drought shriveled
the crops and left the loose top soil to the mercy of the ever-
present winds. On Sunday, April 14, 1935, called Black Sunday, a
massive front moved across the Great Plains from the northwest.
Packing winds of 60 miles per hour, the loose topsoil was
scooped up and mounded into billowing clouds of dust hundreds of
feet high. People hurried home, for to be caught outside could
mean suffocation and