DUST BOWL LORE

Oklahoma was and is identified as "the Dust Bowl State" even though it had less acreage in the area designated by the Soil Conservation Service as the Dust Bowl than did the contiguous states of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The lore of the Dust Bowl still circulates around the Oklahoma image as fiercely as the dust storms that blew through its Panhandle.

Sunday, April 14, 1935, started as a clear day in Guymon, Oklahoma. The temperature was in the upper eighties, and the citizens, in their fourth year of drought, went to the Methodist Church for a "rain service." The congregation packed the church and lifted prayers seeking divine intervention for moisture; the minister said that "good rains within three weeks means a harvest; God rules all, and our last resort is prayer." By late afternoon the skies were darkened, but not by rain clouds. Instead, the worst of the black blizzards hit Guymon.    More.....