If you have aver been in a Great Plains winter, you’d know–they can be utterly brutal. Livestock often froze to death for lack of shelter. There were no crop fields back then, so there was nothing between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains to stop the wind but short grass. I have been in Oklahoma City in July when the temperature was 104 degrees for weeks at a stretch and the wind was blowing 60 m.p.h. "Wind comes sweeping down the plains," indeed. The right plow blades to break through the tough plains grasses had not yet been developed, nor were there hybrids of grains adapted to the arid climate and the temperature extremes. Water for crops and livestock was scarce. There no forests on the Plains, and wood for building and fuel was hard to come by. It was too early for the transcontinental railroads, so towns tended to hug the few rivers and be very far apart. You might have been fifty miles from your nearest neighbor, and there were no roads AT ALL. And the Plains Indian tribes did not take kindly to the white intruders who killed their game and encroached on their lifestyle. They were pioneers before they were settlers.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
If you have aver been in a Great Plains winter, you’d know–they can be utterly brutal. Livestock often froze to death for lack of shelter. There were no crop fields back then, so there was nothing between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains to stop the wind but short grass. I have been in Oklahoma City in July when the temperature was 104 degrees for weeks at a stretch and the wind was blowing 60 m.p.h. "Wind comes sweeping down the plains," indeed. The right plow blades to break through the tough plains grasses had not yet been developed, nor were there hybrids of grains adapted to the arid climate and the temperature extremes. Water for crops and livestock was scarce. There no forests on the Plains, and wood for building and fuel was hard to come by. It was too early for the transcontinental railroads, so towns tended to hug the few rivers and be very far apart. You might have been fifty miles from your nearest neighbor, and there were no roads AT ALL. And the Plains Indian tribes did not take kindly to the white intruders who killed their game and encroached on their lifestyle. They were pioneers before they were settlers.
References :