%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Brush http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/brush-0 <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Brush</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3774--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3774.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/early-brush"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Early%20Brush%20Downtown_0.jpg?itok=jM19sdbg" width="1090" height="764" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/early-brush" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Early Brush</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Photograph of town of Brush, Colorado taken June 5, 1898. A fair crowd of people roam the wide dirt street on foot, and clustered near buildings, some with horse and wagons. Building at right in front sold dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes according to its sign. Farther back in distance are homes, and government building or school. &nbsp;</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3775--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3775.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/1935-flood"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Brush%201935%20Flood_0.jpg?itok=gpCqWc5n" width="1090" height="625" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/1935-flood" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">1935 Flood</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Photograph showing the 100 block of Clayton St. in Brush, Colorado with flood waters up to the undercarriage of automobiles on the street. Businesses shown along the street with people standing on sidewalks and leaning over hood of car: The Beery Hardware Company, Pete's Cafe, Red &amp; White, New Desky Hotel.&nbsp;</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2022-08-24T13:36:03-06:00" title="Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 13:36" class="datetime">Wed, 08/24/2022 - 13:36</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/brush-0" data-a2a-title="Brush"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fbrush-0&amp;title=Brush"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Brush is an agricultural community in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/morgan-county"><strong>Morgan County</strong></a> on the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>plains</strong></a> of eastern Colorado. It is located just east of <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-morgan"><strong>Fort Morgan</strong></a> at the convergence of US Highway 34, US Highway 6, and State Highway 71 and is situated along the historic Texas Montana Trail. This trail allowed ranchers to graze their cattle on the rich prairie grasses and was the impetus for the town’s organization in 1882.</p> <p>A harsh winter in 1886–87 (known as “<a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-die"><strong>The Great Die Up</strong></a>”) killed the open-range cattle industry, but the waters of the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte River</strong></a> ensured that Brush would endure as an agricultural town. By 1900 Brush had become an important rail stop between <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> and Chicago. The <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beet industry</strong></a> and energy development sustained the town through the twentieth century, and today it is home to approximately 5,500 people.</p> <h2>Early History</h2> <p>Northeast Colorado has a long history of human occupation, mostly by hunter-gatherer societies. People belonging to what archaeologists call the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari cultures</strong></a> left evidence of hunting, fishing, and horticulture along the South Platte corridor in what is now northeast Colorado and Nebraska. By the time European Americans arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century, <strong>Cheyenne</strong> and <strong>Arapaho</strong> people hunted <a href="/article/bison"><strong>bison</strong></a> and found fuel and shelter in the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees"><strong>cottonwood</strong></a> groves along the South Platte. The US government eventually forced these people off their land after a series of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/indigenous-treaties-colorado"><strong>treaties</strong></a> and violent <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/battle-summit-springs-0"><strong>encounters</strong></a>, including the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>Sand Creek Massacre</strong></a> of 1864.</p> <h2>Town Formation</h2> <p>Brush is named for Jared L. Brush, an Ohio native who became an important cattle rancher in northeast Colorado and helped to pioneer the cattle trail to Missouri. He was also an important civic leader in nearby <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a>, a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld County</strong></a> sheriff, a Colorado assemblyman, and a two-time lieutenant governor. While he owned land that would later be used to build the cemetery in his namesake town, he never lived there.</p> <p>Founders first platted the town in 1882 as a stopping point on the Burlington Railroad line between Chicago and Denver. In October 1884, the 100 residents of Brush voted to formally incorporate. One of the oldest surviving houses in Brush, the Nelson House at 322 Clayton Street, dates to this period. Its old-world simplicity and thick limestone walls make it a unique representation of the area’s development.</p> <p>Between 1882 and 1889, the Burlington Railroad promoted significant growth, and town promoters believed Brush should be the county seat. But the population still lagged behind nearby Fort Morgan. Within a few years, however, Brush’s population swelled, primarily due to the arrival of a large group of Danish immigrants. In all of Morgan County, Danish immigrants would eventually represent only 2 percent of the population, but they substantially contributed to the city of Brush.</p> <h2>Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center</h2> <p>As in other Colorado towns, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/tuberculosis-colorado"><strong>tuberculosis</strong></a> patients helped grow the Brush community. In 1903 a Dane, Pastor Jens Madsen, his wife Ane Marie, and a small group of their Lutheran congregation formed a tubercular treatment hospital in Brush. Operating out of several leased houses on Curtis and Carson Streets, their practice quickly outgrew the small buildings. The Madsens purchased thirty-five acres west of Brush, and by 1906 the hospital’s first building, known as the Bethesda building, was complete. This original building was replaced in 1913 by Elim Hospital, a larger administration building with two patient wings. Also on the grounds was the All-Saints Lutheran Chapel (1916), which still stands today.</p> <p>Despite its remote location, Madsen’s tubercular hospital gained a sterling reputation. Within thirty years, the Institute became so well-respected that the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark visited for a tour.&nbsp; Today the facility, originally known as the Eben Ezer Care Institute, remains in operation as the Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center.</p> <h2>Sugar Beets</h2> <p>At the turn of the century, farmers in Morgan County explored a new crop, the sugar beet. In Brush, the <em>Brush Tribune</em> and the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-western-sugar-company"><strong>Great Western Sugar Company</strong></a> worked together to distribute seeds to farmers. Harvests were low at first due to drought conditions, but by 1904 farmers harvested approximately 3,000 tons of beets in the Brush area. <em>Brush Tribune</em> owner Ed Madison and local businessman A. J. Morey hoped successful crops would convince Great Western to open a processing facility in Brush. One of the main concerns was <a href="/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> for farmers, so the two raised funds to create Jackson Reservoir northwest of Fort Morgan.</p> <p>The duo’s promotion efforts paid off. Great Western Sugar decided to build a processing facility in Brush in 1906. This large facility provided a much-needed boost to the local economy. Soon farmers could bring as much as 600 pounds of beets per day to the facility for processing. It also inspired nearby Fort Morgan to campaign for its own factory, which it received and is still in operation. A banner harvest in 1906 helped catapult the Brush factory onto the state’s top producers list. Sugar beets became a wildly successful crop in northeast Colorado, and the Brush facility operated until 1955.</p> <p>Sugar beets changed the demographic makeup of Brush and Morgan County because beets required intensive manual labor. Germans from Russia and Japanese families arrived to work the fields in the early twentieth century. Later, Mexican and Central American immigrants were brought in to work the fields. Today nearly half of Brush’s population identifies as Latino.</p> <p>The cultivation of sugar beets was at the mercy of the volatile weather on the plains. In 1935 heavy rains caused a severe flash flood in Brush and the streets quickly overflowed, with up to four feet of water in some places. Four people were killed. Cars parked downtown navigated knee-high water and local businesses suffered costly damage. The South Platte would flood intermittently throughout the twentieth century, including a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/south-platte-flood-1965"><strong>large event in 1965</strong></a> that sent a thirty-foot, three-mile-wide crest of water through the area.</p> <h2>World War II</h2> <p>In the runup to <strong>World War II</strong>, dozens of local boys reported to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for training. Servicemen from Fort Morgan and Brush composed Company K and Company L, respectively. The first Brush native killed in the war was John Reece, who was stationed on the U.S.S. Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.</p> <p>During 1944 and 1945, Brush was home to fifty Italian prisoners of war who helped to alleviate the labor shortage in the sugar beet fields. These prisoners lived in the Armory, originally built in 1921, and the guards lived in the Desky Hotel in downtown Brush.</p> <h2>Energy Frontier</h2> <p>By 1953 Brush was home to one of the highest-producing oil wells in Colorado, which helped propel record growth in Morgan County. The Goodall Pipeline Company and the Arapahoe Pipeline Company quickly connected the Brush wells to a network that stretched as far as Nebraska and Kansas. Brush was also a natural gas producer, and 48,000 feet of gas lines made gas available to Brush customers in 1951.</p> <p>On December 6, 1981, the coal-fired, steam-electric generating station known as the Pawnee Power Plant went online. Before construction, citizens expressed concerns about the factory’s water usage and potential for pollution. The factory is a zero-discharge facility, meaning it does not produce wastewater. There is a 140-acre reservoir on site. Operators Pawnee, and now Xcel Energy have installed several new systems to mitigate the environmental impact and maintain a clean facility. Construction of the original facility cost upwards of $465 million and created dozens of jobs.</p> <h2>Today</h2> <p>In the twenty-first century, the people of Brush have worked diligently on downtown revitalization and historic preservation. In 2014 Brush received the designation of an All-American City by the National Civic League. In 2015 Brush was the recipient of the Small Community of the Year award by the Economic Development Council of Colorado. Agriculture and livestock raising remain the backbone of the local economy, with feedlots and farms covering the outskirts of town as well as meat processing plants. The sugar beet remains an important crop, with farmers sending beets to Fort Morgan for processing.</p> <p>Healthcare is also a major employer, with the East Morgan County Hospital and the Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center. Brush also has its own fairgrounds, a small local museum, a golf course at Petteys Park, and a revitalized downtown that features many small businesses and has recently received new streets, sidewalks, lights, and planters.&nbsp;</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/campbell-alyse" hreflang="und">Campbell, Alyse</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/brush" hreflang="en">brush</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/morgan-county" hreflang="en">Morgan County</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sugar-beets" hreflang="en">sugar beets</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sugar-beet-industry" hreflang="en">sugar beet industry</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/natural-gas-industry" hreflang="en">natural gas industry</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-plains" hreflang="en">colorado plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/eastern-plains" hreflang="en">eastern plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rural-colorado" hreflang="en">rural colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/i-76" hreflang="en">i-76</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/south-platte-river" hreflang="en">south platte river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ranching" hreflang="en">ranching</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cattle" hreflang="en">cattle</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-die" hreflang="en">great die up</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/brush-colorado-history" hreflang="en">brush colorado history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alyse-campbell" hreflang="en">alyse campbell</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Brush Historic Preservation Board, “<a href="https://cms9files1.revize.com/brushco/Document%20Center/History/dt%20buildings%20brochure%20web.pdf">Downtown Brush Historic Walking Tour</a>,” 2015.</p> <p>Brush Museum, “<a href="https://cms9files1.revize.com/brushco/Document%20Center/Visitors/Museum%20Brochure.pdf">Brush Area Museum and Culture Center</a>,” n.d.</p> <p>City of Brush, “<a href="https://www.brushcolo.com/businesses/business_development/index.php">Business Development</a>,” 2022.</p> <p>City of Brush, “<a href="https://www.brushcolo.com/visitors/history.php">History</a>,” 2021.</p> <p>Colorado General Assembly, “<a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/pawnee_generating_station.pdf">Xcel Energy Pawnee Generation Station</a>,” n.d.</p> <p>Colorado Legislative Council, “<a href="https://www.law.du.edu/images/uploads/library/CLC/106.pdf">Report to the Colorado General Assembly: 1965 Flood Disasters in Colorado</a>,” Research Publication no. 106, November 1965.</p> <p><a href="https://www.ebenezer-cares.org/index.php?lang=en">Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center</a></p> <p>Sherry Gilliland, ed. <em>Morgan County – World War II</em> (Fort Morgan, Curtis Media Inc., 1995).</p> <p>Candy Hamilton, <em>Footprints in the Sugar: A History of the Great Western Sugar Company</em>, (Hamilton Bates Publishers, 2009).</p> <p>Barbara Keenan, “The Danish Community in Brush,” in <em>Morgan County: A Land of Immigrants</em> (Fort Morgan, One Morgan County, 2014).<a id="_Hlk106962866" name="_Hlk106962866"></a></p> <p>Dale Stinton, <em>A Bit of Brush History</em> (City of Brush, 2012).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p><em>Morgan County</em>, Brian Mack and Linda Midcap ed. (Charleston, Arcadia Publishing, 2016).</p> <p><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-western-sugar-company">Great Western Sugar</a></p> <p><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/morgan-county">Morgan County</a></p> <p>Elliott West, <em>The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 24 Aug 2022 19:36:03 +0000 yongli 3776 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Kent Haruf http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/kent-haruf <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Kent Haruf</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2021-01-26T16:38:10-07:00" title="Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - 16:38" class="datetime">Tue, 01/26/2021 - 16:38</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/kent-haruf" data-a2a-title="Kent Haruf"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fkent-haruf&amp;title=Kent%20Haruf"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Kent Haruf (1943–2014) was a novelist best known for <em>Plainsong</em> (1999). Set in the fictional town of Holt in northeast Colorado, <em>Plainsong</em> and Haruf’s other novels examine the lives of ordinary people on the high <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>plains</strong></a>. Often praised for his unadorned style and humane outlook, Haruf is generally regarded as one of the great American novelists of his time.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Early Life</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Alan Kent Haruf was born in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pueblo-0"><strong>Pueblo</strong></a> on February 24, 1943, as the third of Eleanor and Louis Haruf’s four children. His father was a Methodist minister, and the family moved often. For the first twelve years of his life, Haruf’s family moved between the northeast Colorado towns of Wray, Holyoke, and Yuma. Haruf then spent his teens in <strong>Ca</strong><strong>ñ</strong><strong>on</strong><strong> City</strong>, where he attended high school.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early 1960s, Haruf left Colorado to attend Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. Initially intending to study biology, he changed course when he read William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. “My life and my intentions were changed forever,” he later wrote. “I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life reading great writing and thinking about it.” The influence of Hemingway’s spare prose and Faulkner’s sense of place is evident in Haruf’s novels.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Struggling Writer</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After graduating in 1965 with a degree in English, Haruf spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English to children in a small town in central Turkey. There he started to write short stories.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Upon his return to the United States, Haruf married his girlfriend, Virginia Koon. He also started a graduate program in English at the University of Kansas, but quit in his second semester. No longer shielded by a student deferment, he was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. He obtained conscientious objector status and performed two years of alternative service in a rehabilitation hospital near <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> and an orphanage in Helena, Montana, where he and Virginia had their first daughter.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Haruf continued to write stories and send them to magazines, but they were all rejected. Undeterred, he applied to the prestigious creative writing program at the University of Iowa and moved his family there even before he received a response. He was accepted—largely, he thought, because he had showed up in person to say he had moved to town—and received his MFA in 1973. It was at Iowa that Haruf began to set his stories in the fictional town of Holt, a composite of the northeast Colorado towns where he had grown up. “That was the part of the world that I knew best and that I cared about,” he later explained about his choice of setting. “I have a long-range, long-time, long-lived sense of place and a sense of home there.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The novel that Haruf completed for his master’s degree was rejected by publishers, the start of a long decade of struggles. During these years, he taught high school English—first in Madison, Wisconsin, where the couple had two more daughters, and then in eastern Colorado. He also worked as a chicken farmer, construction worker, and railroad laborer to support his growing family. He wrote when he could during summers off from teaching.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Early Novels</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1984, at age forty-one, Haruf finally sold his first short story to the literary magazine <em>Puerto del Sol </em>and also published his first novel, <em>The Tie That Binds</em>, about a woman who sacrifices herself to care for her family. Although it did not attract many readers, his first novel received critical praise and won both a PEN/Hemingway Foundation citation for first fiction and a Whiting Foundation Award.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The novel also helped Haruf get a teaching position at his alma mater, Nebraska Wesleyan, which provided him with a more stable working situation and more time to write. His second novel, <em>Where You Once Belonged</em>, about a former high school football star, was published in 1990. Like Haruf’s first book, this one received high praise—the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> called it “stirring and remarkable”—but did not sell well.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Success</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early 1990s, Haruf’s life entered a period of change. He moved from Nebraska Wesleyan to Southern Illinois University–Carbondale in 1991. Meanwhile, as his first marriage ended in divorce, he reconnected with a childhood friend, Cathy Dempsey, at their thirtieth high school reunion in Cañon City. They married in 1995.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>For six years, Haruf worked on a new novel set in Holt. He started using a new writing method of pulling a wool cap over his eyes while typing to help him enter Holt in his mind and force him to get a full first draft of a scene before revising anything. The result, <em>Plainsong</em> (1999), which focuses on two schoolteachers, a pregnant teenager, and the two old farmer brothers who take her in, is generally considered the finest novel of his career. Lauded as “a moving look at our capacity for both pointless cruelty and simple decency,” it was a finalist for the National Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Award. It was also Haruf’s first best seller, enabling him to retire from teaching and move to the <strong>Salida</strong> area with his wife in 2001.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Later Works</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early 2000s, Haruf continued the story he started in <em>Plainsong</em>. A sequel, <em>Eventide</em> (2004), follows the old farmer brothers from the earlier book after the pregnant teenager they cared for has left with her baby. It was another bestseller, and many publications, including the <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong>, named it one of the best books of the year. It also won the Colorado Book Award for literary fiction. Haruf completed his <em>Plainsong</em> trilogy with <em>Benediction</em> (2013), which deals with the arrival of a new, progressive minister in Holt and the death of a somewhat hard-edged hardware-store owner.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As Haruf’s work became more popular, it also started to be adapted into other formats. A television movie of <em>Plainsong</em> aired in 2004; Haruf disliked it. He was much more pleased with the <strong>Denver Center Theatre Company</strong>’s staged versions of <em>Plainsong</em> (2008), <em>Eventide</em> (2010), and <em>Benediction</em> (2015), the last of which premiered after his death. He also began to receive awards celebrating his full body of work. In 2006 he was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for underrecognized writers in the middle of their careers. In 2012 he received the <strong>Center of the American West</strong>’s Wallace Stegner Award for his contribution to the cultural identity of the West.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In early 2014, Haruf received a diagnosis of interstitial lung disease, for which there is no cure. Knowing that his time was limited, he started working on a new novel in May and finished a first draft just six weeks later—remarkably fast for a writer who usually spent closer to six years on a novel. He said that the book, which centers on a relationship between two older people in Holt, was basically about him and his wife. “In many ways,” he wrote, “it gave me an added reason to stay alive.” He died on November 30, soon after finishing revisions. <em>Our Souls at Night</em> was published posthumously in 2015. A movie starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda was filmed in <strong>Florence</strong> and <strong>Old Colorado City</strong>, and released in 2017.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Legacy</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Despite his late success and relatively small body of work, Haruf gained a reputation as one of the most powerful American writers of his generation. Shortly before his death, novelist and critic Ursula K. Le Guin declared him “a stunningly original writer” whose works “are unsurpassed by anything I know in contemporary fiction.” <em>New York Times</em> critic Michiko Kakutani’s assessment of <em>Eventide</em> could apply to his work as a whole: “Mr. Haruf makes us care about these plainspoken small-town folks without ever resorting to sentimentality or cliches.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 2015 his widow, Cathy Haruf, helped establish the Kent Haruf Scholarship for high school writers in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/chaffee-county"><strong>Chaffee</strong></a> and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/county/fremont-county"><strong>Fremont</strong></a> Counties. The biannual Kent Haruf Literary Celebration in Salida serves as a fundraiser for the scholarship. Haruf’s papers are archived at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/kent-haruf" hreflang="en">Kent Haruf</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-plains" hreflang="en">colorado plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/high-plains" hreflang="en">high plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/eastern-plains" hreflang="en">eastern plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/holt" hreflang="en">Holt</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/plainsong" hreflang="en">Plainsong</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/eventide" hreflang="en">Eventide</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/benediction" hreflang="en">Benediction</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/our-souls-night" hreflang="en">Our Souls at Night</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/salida" hreflang="en">Salida</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Richard Eder, “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-02-11-bk-777-story.html">The Man Who Lynched His Home Town</a>,” <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, February 11, 1990.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="https://nebraskaauthors.org/authors/kent-haruf">Kent Haruf</a>,” Nebraska Authors, n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Kent Haruf, “<a href="https://granta.com/the-making-of-a-writer/">The Making of a Writer</a>,” <em>Granta</em> 129 (2014).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ursula K. Le Guin, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/05/benediction-review-small-town-kent-haruf-holt">Benediction Review—A Stunningly Original Writer</a>,” <em>Guardian</em>, March 5, 2014.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Jeff Martin, “<a href="http://peacecorpswriters.org/pages/1999/9911/911talkharuf.html">Talking with Kent Haruf</a>,” Peace Corps Writers, 1999.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Chris Outcalt, “<a href="https://www.5280.com/the-precious-ordinary-2/">The Precious Ordinary</a>,” <em>5280</em>, June 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="http://www.longwood.edu/english/dos-passos-prize/past-recipients-and-select-works/">Past Recipients and Select Works</a>,” John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, Longwood University, n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="https://www.coloradocentralmagazine.com/q-a-with-colorado-author-kent-haruf/">Q &amp; A with Colorado Author Kent Haruf</a>,” <em>Colorado Central Magazine</em>, April 2, 2013.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Arlene Shovald, “<a href="https://www.themountainmail.com/free_content/article_b7ec47fe-7195-11e9-b26c-73b0aa5df9cd.html">Local Students Receive Kent Haruf Scholarship Awards</a>,” <em>Mountain Mail </em>(Salida, CO), May 8, 2019.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Dinitia Smith, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/01/books/eyes-covered-but-seeing-a-novelist-looks-inward.html">Eyes Covered but Seeing, a Novelist Looks Inward</a>,” <em>New York Times</em>, December 1, 1999.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ira Sukrungruang, “<a href="https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/2014/12/kent-haruf-1943-2014/">From Chicken Farmer to Writer: An Interview with Kent Haruf</a>,” <em>Colorado Review</em> 28, no. 3 (Fall 2001).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>William Yardley, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/books/kent-haruf-sublime-novelist-of-small-town-life-dies-at-71.html">Kent Haruf, Acclaimed Novelist of Small-Town Life, Is Dead at 71</a>,” <em>New York Times</em>, December 2, 2014.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Kent Haruf, <em>Our Souls at Night</em> (New York: Knopf, 2015).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Kent Haruf, <em>Plainsong</em> (New York: Knopf, 1999).</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://honorkentharuf.org/">Honoring Kent Haruf</a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>John Moore, “<a href="https://www.denvercenter.org/news-center/kent-haruf-the-complete-final-interview/">Kent Haruf: The Complete Final Interview</a>,” Denver Center for the Performing Arts, December 1, 2014.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Tue, 26 Jan 2021 23:38:10 +0000 yongli 3504 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org The Dust Bowl http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/dust-bowl <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The Dust Bowl</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1348--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1348.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/plow-broke-plains"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/MCC-882_0.jpg?itok=qV2EYZN7" width="1000" height="804" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/plow-broke-plains" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The Plow that Broke the Plains</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A steam-powered tractor pulls a harrow on the open plains of Colorado. The mechanization of farming contributed significantly to the environmental catastrophe of the dust bowl in the mid-1930s.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1349--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1349.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/fury-dust"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/X-7371_0.jpg?itok=PVjxkvkz" width="1000" height="668" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/fury-dust" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The Fury of Dust</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A dust storm bears down on the town of Burlington in Kit Carson, County, enveloping everything in its path.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" 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field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-05-09T10:53:44-06:00" title="Monday, May 9, 2016 - 10:53" class="datetime">Mon, 05/09/2016 - 10:53</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/dust-bowl" data-a2a-title="The Dust Bowl"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fdust-bowl&amp;title=The%20Dust%20Bowl"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>In the 1930s, eastern Colorado experienced the worst ecological disaster in the state’s history. Unsustainable farming practices and widespread drought transformed the once fertile <strong><a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains">Great Plains</a> </strong>into a barren landscape, inhospitable to both humans and animals. The experience of the Dust Bowl provides Coloradans a prism through which to view humanity’s historic, and often troubled, relationship with the sensitive ecosystems of the Great Plains.</p> <h2>Origins</h2> <p>The <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/homestead"><strong>Homestead Act</strong></a> of 1862 allowed American citizens to claim parcels of 160 acres in the arid West. The promise of free land and above-average rainfall in the 1870s encouraged the rapid settlement of the Great Plains. After setbacks in the dry 1890s, the development of mechanized farming in the 1910s proved to be the final ingredient necessary to turn what was known as the "<strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/%E2%80%9Cgreat-american-desert%E2%80%9D">Great American Desert</a>"</strong> into America’s breadbasket. Steam-driven tractors transformed thousands of acres of native prairie grasses into undulating fields of wheat, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beets</strong></a>, and other crops. This exponentially increased the productivity and profitability of farming in southeastern Colorado, but it also removed the dense network of grass roots that held down the topsoil, making Colorado’s prairies vulnerable to ecological crisis.</p> <p>Throughout the 1930s, southeastern Colorado and the Great Plains experienced extreme droughts. <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/baca-county"><strong>Baca</strong></a><strong>,</strong> <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/las-animas-county"><strong>Las Animas</strong></a>, and <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/prowers-county">Prowers</a> </strong>Counties were among those areas hit hardest by drought. The region received a meager 126 total inches of moisture between 1930 and 1939, 205 fewer inches than the previous decade. Annual precipitation fell below the eighteen inches needed to grow wheat, which had a devastating effect on the region’s wheat crop. For instance, in 1930 Baca County had 237,000 acres in wheat production; by 1936 that number had fallen to 150 acres. The lack of precipitation meant hundreds of thousands of acres no longer had plants to anchor the soil to the ground.</p> <h2>From Drought to Dust</h2> <p>Dust was not uncommon in the semiarid regions of Colorado when the prairie winds blew, so it was no surprise when a few “dusters”—large dust clouds—appeared in 1931. In 1932 the dusters returned with greater intensity. By 1933&nbsp;the frequency and intensity of dust storms endangered the health of livestock and people alike.&nbsp;The destructive storms earned the decade the moniker the “dirty thirties.”&nbsp;The storms destroyed millions of farmland acres and induced mental and physical anguish among residents.&nbsp;Towns had to turn on their streetlights during the day and the ubiquitous dust forced people to put wet sheets over doors and windows.&nbsp;Colorado’s farmers ate meals under tablecloths and wore goggles and masks of wet towels when they dared venture outdoors. Cases of dust pneumonia reached epidemic proportions in animals and humans.</p> <h2>Black Sunday</h2> <p>On April 14, 1935, a “black duster” overtook Robert E. Geiger, a reporter for the <em>Washington (DC) Evening Star</em>, and photographer Harry G. Eisenhard six miles from Boise City, Oklahoma. Geiger coined the term <em>Dust Bowl</em> when he used it in a subsequent article for the <em>Lubbock (TX) Evening Journal</em>. The Dust Bowl encompassed the entire Great Plains, stretching from southwestern Kansas into southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. Although Baca County experienced the brunt of the Dust Bowl, dust storms occurred as far north as <strong>Burlington</strong> in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/kit-carson-county"><strong>Kit Carson County</strong></a> and <strong>Julesburg</strong> in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sedgwick-county"><strong>Sedgwick County</strong></a>. Las Animas and Prowers counties were especially hard hit. Dust covered roads and made them impassable, suffocated livestock, destroyed crops, and laid ruin to the livelihoods of thousands of eastern Coloradans.</p> <p>During the Dust Bowl, Colorado’s plains also suffered from grasshopper infestations. Grasshoppers thrived in the desiccated prairie soils and first descended upon Colorado in 1934. In 1937 and 1938, swarms of the insects almost blacked out the sun as they consumed entire fields of barley, wheat, and alfalfa. The federal government sent employees from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/civilian-conservation-corps-colorado"><strong>Civilian Conservation Corps</strong> </a>and the <strong>Soil Conservation Service</strong> (SCS) to eradicate the pests by poisoning them. Although some families endured, many residents found it impossible to support themselves and ended up migrating to places like California and Oregon. Baca County, for example, lost 4,363 residents during the 1930s.</p> <h2>The New Deal</h2> <p>Several <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/new-deal-colorado"><strong>New Deal</strong></a> programs provided direct relief to Colorado residents in the form of provisions and clothing, while others assisted in long-term economic recovery.&nbsp;New Deal programs provided loans to struggling farmers and businesses, while&nbsp;direct relief to families came in the form of cash payments and food allotments.&nbsp;Relief figures indicate that almost all of Baca County’s residents benefited from New Deal programs. In 1936 more than 50 percent of Baca County residents were on the relief rolls.</p> <p>The <strong>Works Progress Administration </strong>(<strong>WPA</strong>), created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 8, 1935, aimed to provide both direct and long-term relief. At its peak in 1938 the WPA provided employment for more than 3 million unemployed men and women. The federal government allocated $1,064,021 to the WPA for public construction projects in Baca County, including the improvement or construction of roads, bridges, schools, and other public and municipal buildings.</p> <h2>Toward an Ethic of Land Use</h2> <p>In 1935 agricultural experts met in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pueblo-0"><strong>Pueblo</strong></a> to discuss how human interaction with Great Plains environments had caused the Dust Bowl. The group estimated that the prairie winds had blown 850 million tons of topsoil off the southern plains in 1935 alone. New Deal programs were designed to combat erosion immediately and educate current and future generations of farmers in appropriate soil conservation techniques to prevent a repeat of the disaster. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration), and the SCS all addressed the environmental crisis of the Dust Bowl.</p> <h2>Rehabilitating the Land&nbsp;</h2> <p>The <strong>Taylor Grazing Act </strong>ended the homestead movement when it passed Congress in 1934. The act authorized the <strong>US</strong> <strong>Department of the Interior</strong> to establish grazing districts and manage a grazing permit system aimed at curbing destructive grazing practices.</p> <p>Established in 1934, the <strong>Land Utilization Program</strong> (<strong>LUP</strong>) sought to alleviate rural poverty and restore the economic vitality of agriculture. The LUP purchased submarginal and eroded lands, restored them, and converted them to grazing, forestry, wildlife, or recreation areas. According to President Roosevelt, “Many million acres of such land must be returned to grass or trees if we are to prevent a new and man-made Sahara.”</p> <p>Under the LUP, the federal government purchased more than 4.7 million acres of submarginal farmland in Baca<strong>, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/otero-county">Otero</a>, </strong>and Las Animas counties in Colorado and throughout the West. In 1953 the SCS transferred management of those lands to the <a href="/article/us-forest-service-colorado"><strong>US Forest Service (USFS)</strong></a>. On June 20, 1960, the USFS established the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/comanche-national-grassland"><strong>Comanche National Grasslands</strong></a> in what are now Baca<strong>, </strong>Otero<strong>, </strong>and Las Animas counties. Many of the lands purchased from bankrupt farmers during the Dust Bowl had been rehabilitated into the public domain to be enjoyed for their natural splendor.</p> <p><strong>Adapted from Cindy Nasky, “<a href="https://coloradopreservation.org/crsurvey/rural/baca/sites/baca_resources_depression.html">Depression and the Dust Bowl</a>,” Colorado Preservation, Inc., n.d.</strong></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dust-bowl" hreflang="en">dust bowl</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dust-bowl-colorado-0" hreflang="en">dust bowl in colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/baca-county" hreflang="en">baca county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/otero-county" hreflang="en">otero county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/prowers-county" hreflang="en">prowers county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cheyenne-county" hreflang="en">Cheyenne County</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/kiowa-county" hreflang="en">kiowa county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/kit-carson-county" hreflang="en">kit carson county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/julesburg" hreflang="en">julesburg</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-plains" hreflang="en">colorado plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dust-bowl-history-colorado" hreflang="en">dust bowl history colorado</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, “<a href="https://www.weather.gov/oun/">The ‘Black Sunday’ Dust Storm of 14 April 1935</a>,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last modified February 12, 2015.</p> <p>History Colorado, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/news-room/eighty-years-ago-week-dust-bowl-storm-wreaks-havoc-colorado-plains">Eighty Years Ago This Week Dust Bowl Storm Wreaks Havoc on Colorado Plains</a>,” n.d.</p> <p>R. Douglas Hurt, “<a href="http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.pe.022.xml">Dust Bowl</a>,” <em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains</em>, ed. David J. Wishart, 2011.</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard, and Thomas J. Noel, <em>Colorado: A History of the Centennial State</em>, 5th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2013).</p> <p>Richard N. Ellis and Duane A. Smith, eds., <em>Colorado: A History in Photographs</em>, rev. ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2005).</p> <p>Brad D. Lookingbill, <em>Dust Bowl, USA: Depression America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929–1941</em> (Athens: Ohio State University Press, 2001).</p> <p>Carter Revard, <em>Winning the Dust Bowl</em> (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001).</p> <p>Dave Showalter, <em>Prairie Thunder: The Nature of Colorado’s Great Plains</em> (Pueblo, CO: Skyline Press, 2007).</p> <p>Donald Worster, <em>Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).</p> <p>John R. Wunder, Frances W. Kaye, and Vernon Carstensen, eds., <em>Americans View Their Dust Bowl Experience</em> (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1999).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Mon, 09 May 2016 16:53:44 +0000 yongli 1347 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Colorado’s Great Plains http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorados-great-plains <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Colorado’s Great Plains</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--935--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--935.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/great-plains-thunderstorm-colorado"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Great-Plains-Thunderstorm-Colorado-John-Fielder_0.jpg?itok=cuLetpO9" width="1090" height="851" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/great-plains-thunderstorm-colorado" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Great Plains Thunderstorm, Colorado</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-03-04T10:12:53-07:00" title="Friday, March 4, 2016 - 10:12" class="datetime">Fri, 03/04/2016 - 10:12</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorados-great-plains" data-a2a-title="Colorado’s Great Plains"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fcolorados-great-plains&amp;title=Colorado%E2%80%99s%20Great%20Plains"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Eastern Colorado, bordered by the foothills of the <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a> on the west, Kansas on the east, and the corners of Nebraska and Oklahoma, constitutes a portion of the Great Plains. It is the agricultural heartland of Colorado. This semiarid region is characterized by silty and sandy loam soils, twelve to eighteen inches of annual precipitation, and wind velocities averaging from twelve to fourteen miles per hour. Temperatures plunge below zero degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and rise above 100 degrees in the summer. Drought-resistant grama and buffalo grasses, generally known as short grasses, are the predominant natural vegetation.</p> <h2>Indigenous People</h2> <p>Human habitation of Colorado's Great Plains stretches back some 13,000 years to the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/clovis"><strong>Clovis</strong></a> and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/folsom-people"><strong>Folsom</strong></a> periods, where people left tools and artifacts at sites such as the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/lindenmeier-folsom-site"><strong>Lindenmeier Folsom site</strong></a> near present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-collins"><strong>Fort Collins</strong></a>. Much later, around 1100 CE, people from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari</strong></a> cultures lived in eastern Colorado and along the <a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte River</strong></a>. Around 1400 CE, people of the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/apishapa-phase"><strong>Apishapa culture</strong></a> lived in the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> valley in southern Colorado. Later Indigenous nations, including the Pawnee, may have descended from some of these early plains occupants.</p> <p>During the eighteenth century, the <strong>Comanche </strong>followed the horse herds southward out of Wyoming and across the Colorado plains to the Arkansas River Valley. Spain laid claim to these lands as part of Nuevo México but had to contend with the formidable Comanche. As the United States fought for independence from Great Britain in the late eighteenth century, the Spanish secured several victories against the Comanche on the plains of Southern Colorado.</p> <p>During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Algonquian-speaking <strong>Arapaho</strong> and <strong>Cheyenne</strong> arrived on the Colorado plains. Both nations had reached the Platte River Valley from the north. The Arapaho ranged west to the foothills and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range"><strong>Front Range</strong></a> of the Rocky Mountains, while the Cheyenne mostly kept to the eastern plains. The grasslands nourished the huge <strong><a href="/article/bison">bison</a> </strong>herds that both native groups depended on for food, clothing, and shelter. By the 1840s, an uptick in the bison hide trade and westward Anglo-American expansion along the Oregon Trail led to a decline in the bison population, and the Indigenous way of life on the Plains began to change.</p> <p>Over the ensuing decades, especially after the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> in 1858–59, a growing population of white invaders pressured Native Nations to give up their land to the United States. Many Cheyenne and Arapaho bands faced starvation during this time, and the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>Sand Creek Massacre</strong></a> of 1864 provoked open war between warrior factions of Cheyenne and Arapaho and the US government.</p> <p>Per the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a> of 1867, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders agreed to give up their land in eastern Colorado and move to reservations. Federal treaties split the two nations into northern and southern bands. In 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant created a reservation for the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Today, the two nations are known simply as the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe. In 1878 the Northern Arapaho settled on the Shoshone Reservation in Wyoming. After beginning a northward migration during the late 1870s, in 1900 the Northern Cheyenne received their own reservation in Montana by directive of President William McKinley.</p> <h2>Cattle Empire</h2> <p>As the Cheyenne and Arapaho moved to reservations, above-average precipitation in the 1860s encouraged white settlement. Ranchers, especially from Texas, occupied the Colorado plains before large-scale settlement by farmers. During the 1860s, cattle raisers selected ranch sites along the Arkansas and<strong> </strong><a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte</strong></a> Rivers, and they brought thousands of Texas longhorns to the Colorado plains on their way to northern ranges and miners’ dinner plates in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. By 1869, approximately 1 million cattle and 2 million sheep grazed the eastern plains, primarily between Denver and the Wyoming border. Eastern investors bought cattle and hired ranch managers and cowboys to graze cattle on the public domain.</p> <p>By 1872 two cattle associations, the <strong>Colorado Stockgrowers’ Association</strong> and the <strong>Southern Colorado Association</strong>, had organized to govern the use of the open range. But during the mid-1880s, overgrazing, abnormally hot, grass-scorching summers, and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-die"><strong>severe winters</strong></a> ruined the open-range cattle industry. In its place, settlers were already breaking the grasslands up into farms.</p> <h2>Agricultural Settlement</h2> <p>In 1870, railroad lines such as the <strong>Denver Pacific,</strong> which connected with the <strong>Union Pacific</strong> in Cheyenne; the <strong>Kansas Pacific,</strong> which reached Denver; and the <strong>Rock Island,</strong> which reached <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-springs"><strong>Colorado Springs</strong></a> in 1888, contributed to the rapid settlement of eastern Colorado. During the 1870s and 1880s editors, travelers, and businessmen reported that on Colorado’s high, dry plains farmers could raise crops sufficient to feed themselves and livestock as well as earn a profit. During the late 1880s more than 16,000 farmers filed <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homestead</strong></a> applications. They also filed more than 15,000 claims under the Timber Culture Act of 1878. Farmers who claimed land under the <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>Homestead Act</strong></a> of 1862 and <strong>Timber Culture Acts</strong> of 1873 and 1878 believed the environment of eastern Colorado would support extensive agriculture, but compared to settlement in Nebraska and Kansas, few farmers requested land under these acts. Homesteading on the Colorado plains primarily occurred during the early twentieth century.</p> <p>During the 1870s many settlers established farm communities or colonies. The <strong>Union Colony</strong>, which founded <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a> in 1870, helped encourage further settlement in <a href="/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld County</strong></a>. Settlement colonies purchased large blocks of land, often served by railroads. The immigrant colonies became compact settlements that supported communal efforts, such as the construction of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> systems. During the 1870s the Colorado plains primarily attracted settlers from the Old Northwest (present-day Midwest), New York, Missouri, and Iowa for irrigated farming.</p> <p>Abundant rainfall during the 1880s led many people to believe that eastern Colorado was situated in a “rain belt.” Farmers plowed the drought-resistant native grasses and planted corn, a traditional agricultural practice in the humid, tallgrass prairie to the east. Longtime farmers, however, cautioned that high annual precipitation rates eventually would return to normal or lower and plunge the region into drought conditions. When drought returned during the late 1880s and early 1890s, crops failed, and hundreds of destitute farmers left the Colorado plains. Many farmers who remained succeeded only because they were located in the Platte and Arkansas River Valleys where they could irrigate their crops. The environment of eastern Colorado, then, ruined agricultural practices learned in the humid east, and the agricultural boom collapsed.</p> <p>By the early 1890s many farm families who once believed they lived in a rain belt now depended on charity for their daily needs. In 1894, as the drought worsened, grasshoppers arrived and stripped the struggling grain fields and other vegetation. Many farm families left eastern Colorado because they could not pay their mortgages or maintain their livestock and machinery. <a href="/article/kit-carson-county"><strong>Kit Carson County</strong></a>, for example, lost 36 percent of its population between 1890 and 1900, while the population of <a href="/article/kiowa-county"><strong>Kiowa County</strong></a> dropped from 1,243 to 701 inhabitants. No longer would settlers on the eastern Colorado plains believe that they lived in a rain belt. Thereafter, they increasingly used farming techniques more suitable for agriculture in a semiarid environment.</p> <h2>Twentieth-Century Homesteading</h2> <p>The drought ended on the Colorado plains during the late 1890s, and the Homestead Act’s lure of free land once again attracted farmers. After 1900, approximately 75 percent of the settlers in northeastern Colorado filed homestead claims, an activity that peaked in 1910. Women constituted approximately 12 percent of the early twentieth-century homesteaders, and more than 40 percent of female filers gained title to their land claims, compared to 37 percent of men. Colorado’s women homesteaders were primarily native-born white women. The new settlers on the eastern plains soon emphasized wheat and cattle grazing and <a href="/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beets</strong></a> in irrigated areas.</p> <h2>Dust Bowl</h2> <p>When drought returned to the Colorado plains during the 1930s, it contributed to severe wind erosion that made the region a part of the <strong><a href="/article/dust-bowl">Dust Bowl</a> </strong>(1932–40). During the 1920s, extensive grassland had been plowed for wheat. When the drought killed the wheat plants, little vegetation remained to hold and protect loamy soil from prevailing winds that lifted it into the air, creating huge dust storms. Farming became difficult and often impossible. From 1927 to 1931, Colorado farmers harvested 1 million acres of wheat annually for an average of 13 million bushels; in 1935, the drought prevented them from harvesting more than 193,000 acres, or 2.2 million bushels.</p> <p>The US <strong>Soil Conservation Service</strong> provided technical advice and financial aid to help farmers apply the best conservation techniques to their land. In <a href="/article/baca-county"><strong>Baca County</strong></a> the Soil Conservation Service considered 96 percent of the land highly erodible. The agency encouraged strip cropping, contour plowing, and terracing to help keep down the blowing soil and conserve moisture. The Emergency Cattle Purchase program enabled farmers to sell livestock that they could not feed for lack of grass, forage, and grain. Between August 8, 1934 and June 15, 1935, the federal government purchased 116,580 cattle in eastern Colorado for more than $1.6 million. The program provided for slaughter and canning, and the meat was distributed to poor families during the Depression. The cattle-buying program helped livestock producers remain on the land until the rains returned and the grass began growing again.</p> <p>In addition to cattle, the federal government also purchased wind-eroded land from farmers. The <strong>Land Utilization Project</strong> bought land in Baca, <a href="/article/otero-county"><strong>Otero</strong></a>, and Weld Counties. In 1960, after considerable reseeding of grasses, extensive conservation work, and the return of average precipitation, these projects became the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/comanche-national-grassland"><strong>Comanche</strong></a> and<strong> <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/comanche-national-grassland">Pawnee National Grasslands</a></strong>. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration also paid farmers to plant less wheat and plant more drought-resistant grains, such as sorghum, as well as practice soil and water conservation techniques to protect their lands from wind and water erosion.</p> <h2>Late Twentieth Century</h2> <p>When near-average precipitation returned during the early 1940s, plains farmers continued to plow more native grassland and plant more wheat. As a result, when drought returned during the early 1950s, the sandy wheat lands once again had serious wind erosion problems. By the mid-1960s, improved irrigation technology enabled farmers to expand their crops of wheat, corn, and alfalfa by drawing water from the <strong>Ogallala Aquifer, </strong>a vast reserve of groundwater that underlies Colorado and other plains states. This enabled the relocation of the Midwestern livestock industry’s feedlots and packing plants to Colorado’s eastern plains in order to be closer to the source of supply and reduce operating costs. The packing plants attracted cheap, unskilled labor, often from Mexico and Latin America, although other ethnic groups also conducted the dangerous work by the late twentieth century. This new ethnic mix changed the demographic and social landscape and contributed to a complex social environment in Colorado’s eastern plains communities.</p> <p>Drought again returned during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, ruining wheat and other crops and leaving the ground bare. Strong prevailing winds lifted the soil into the air, just as they did during the Dust Bowl. By the early twenty-first century, the Ogallala Aquifer had declined precipitously due to high pumping rates for irrigation. The water table dropped to too deep a level to permit easy access, and some farmers found irrigation too expensive. Many farmers returned to dry-land agriculture, which meant raising crops such as wheat instead of corn, and with the aid of natural precipitation instead of relying on irrigation. The environment of Colorado’s eastern plains set parameters that required adaptation by all who lived in the region, particularly by those who practiced agriculture. These parameters continue to impose limits on agriculture on the Colorado plains today.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/hurt-r-douglas" hreflang="und">Hurt, R. Douglas </a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/high-plains" hreflang="en">high plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-plains" hreflang="en">colorado plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/plains-indians" hreflang="en">Plains Indians</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/buffalo" hreflang="en">buffalo</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ranching" hreflang="en">ranching</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Paul H. Carlson, <em>The Plains Indians</em> (College Station: Texas A&amp;M University Press, 1998).</p> <p>Geoff Cunfer, <em>On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment</em> (College Station: Texas A&amp;M University Press, 2005).</p> <p>Edward Everett Dale, <em>The Range Cattle Industry: Ranching on the Great Plains from 1865 to 1925</em> (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960).</p> <p>Gilbert C. Fite, <em>The Farmers’ Frontier, 1865–1900</em> (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).</p> <p>Katherine Harris, <em>Long Vistas: Women and Families on Colorado Homesteads</em> (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993).</p> <p>Leslie Hughes, <em>The Suitcase Farming Frontier </em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973).</p> <p>R. Douglas Hurt, <em>The Big Empty: The Great Plains During the Twentieth Century</em> (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011).</p> <p>R. Douglas Hurt, <em>The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History</em> (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981).</p> <p>Ernest Staples Osgood, <em>The Day of the Cattleman</em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).</p> <p>Rodman W. Paul, <em>The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition, 1859–1900</em> &nbsp;(New York: Harper &amp; Row, 1988).</p> <p>David J. Wishart, ed., <a href="http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/"><em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains</em></a> (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).</p> <p>David J. Wishart, ed. <em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians </em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Ken Burns, <em>The Dust Bowl</em> (Public Broadcasting System, 2012).</p> <p>Colorado.com Staff, "<a href="https://www.colorado.com/articles/colorado-summer-bike-races">Pedal the Plains Colorado Bike Tour</a>," Colorado Tourism, 2017.</p> <p>Colorado Roots, "<a href="https://www.colorado.com/articles/highlights-high-plains">Highlights of the High Plains</a>," Colorado Tourism, 2017.</p> <p>Pekka Hämäläinen, <em>The Comanche Empire </em>(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).</p> <p>Rocky Mountain PBS, <a href="https://video.rmpbs.org/video/2353370047/">"Keota,"</a>&nbsp;<em>Colorado Experience</em>, March 21, 2013.</p> <p>Elliot West, <em>Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 04 Mar 2016 17:12:53 +0000 yongli 1177 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org