Great Plains

The Great Plains or High Plains areelevated plains which lie east ofRocky Mountains inUnited StatesAmerica, coveringstatesNew Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, South DakotaNorth Dakota andCanadian provincesSaskatchewanAlberta.

The regionaridgenerally characterized by rangeland or marginal farmland. Generallylies west of100th meridian, which roughly corresponds withline westwhich there20 inchesrainfallyear or less. About every 25 yearsregionsubjectdroughtmay be subjectdevastating duststorms. The region roughly centered onOklahoma Panhandle, including southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas,Texas Panhandle,extreme northeastern New Mexico was known asDust Bowl duringlate 1920searly 1930s. The effect ofdrought combined witheffects ofGreat Depression,many farmers were forced offland thoughoutGreat Plains. Another drought has struckarearecent years.

The southern portion ofGreat Plains lies overOgallala Aquifer,vast underground poolwater dating fromlast ice age. Center pivot irrigationused extensively, butaquiferbeing rapidly depleted.

HistoricallyGreat Plains wererange ofbisonofGreat Plains Culture ofNative American tribes ofBlackfeet, Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comancheothers.

Afternear-extinction ofbuffalo andremoval ofNative Americansreservations,Great Plains were devotedranchingwere open range, that is, anyone was theoretically freerun cattle. Inspringfall, roundups were held andnew calves were branded andcattle sorted outsale. Ranching beganTexasgradually moved northward. Texas cattle were driven north torailroad, especiallyDodge City, Kansas, then shipped eastward by rail. Many foreign, especially British, investors financedgreat ranches ofera. Overstocking ofrange andterrible winter1886 eventually resulted indisastermany cattle starvedfrozen. From then onward, ranchers generally turnedraising feedorderwinter their cattle over.

The Homestead Act1862 provided thatsettler could claim up160 acresland provided he lived onforperiodyearscultivated it. This was later expandedincludehomesteadan entire section. HundredsthousandsAmericansimmigrants proved up homesteads, sometimes building sod houses out ofvery turftheir land. Manythem were not skilled dryland farmersfailures were frequent. The Dominion Lands act1871 served similar fuctionCanada.

See also: Canadian prairies

Further Reading

• Chokecherry Places, Essays fromHigh Plains, Merrill Gilfillan, Johnson Press, Boulder, Colorado, trade paperback, ISBN 1-55566-227-7.
• Colorado Without Mountains, A High Plains Memoir, Harold Hamil, The Lowell Press, Kansas City, Missouri, 1976, Hardback, 284 pages, ISBN 0-913504-33-5.
• The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt,Depression, Paul Bonnifield, UniversityNew Mexico Press, Alquequerque, New Mexico, 1978, hardcover, ISBN 0-8263-0485-0.
• Woody Landscape Plants forHigh Plains, D. H. FairchildJ. E. Klete, Colorado State University, 1993, Technical Bulletin LTB93-1 (Contact CSUbuy this).
• Wolf Willow, A history,story, andmemory oflast plains frontier, Wallace Stegner, Viking Compass Book, New York, 1966, trade paperback, ISBN 0-670-00197-X
• The Tie That Binds (1984),novel about farming by Kent Haruf, Vintage Books 2000, paperback, ISBN 0375724389.