The Great Plains Story
The Great Plains are located near the center of the 48 contiguous states. The land is
characterized as being flat grassy land with few trees. The land there tends to be hard
because of the small amount of rainfall it receives each year. The area was so harsh that
settlers usually just passed through on their way to California or Oregon. The Great Plains
were not so great and most people thought of it as a treeless wasteland.
Then in 1862 Congress passed the Homestead Act. This would allow
families to get up to 160 of land for free! All they had to do was pay a
filing fee then live on the land and farm it for five years. The offer was
too good for many people to pass up. Land equals wealth and if the
government is going to give it to you for free then why not?
If you look at this map, you can see that much of the US was still not
settled. So, if you were to move to the Great Plains, you may be living
miles and miles away from a town, you might not be able to take some of
your things and there was a good chance you would never see the family
members and friends you left behind again. Not to mention that the
Great Plains already had some people living there, mainly the Sioux
Indians!
Even with all the draw backs, many families loaded up their wagons and
headed to the plains. They went for several reasons, the possibility of land
ownership, former slaves went for a new beginning, in the 1870s gold was
discovered in the Black Hills and people went for the possibility of getting rich,
new technologies were making life on the plains a bit more livable, so more
people were willing to give it a try and of course there are always those people
looking for an adventure.
After the Civil War was over many of the freed slaves looked to the
Homestead Act as a way to begin fresh. A man named Pap Singleton
helped thousands of former slaves leave the South for Kansas and other
parts of the Great Plains.
One of the towns many African Americans settled in was Nicodemus,
Kansas. At one point Nicodemus was a thriving town, although it is much
smaller, the town is still around to this day.
Just like their white counter parts, life on the plains was hard for the African Americans.
They lived in sod houses, needed windmills and had to rely on themselves to survive the
harsh environment of the Great Plains.
These men are cutting sod for a house
In order to make life more livable on the plains a series of inventions and
adaptations were made to help the settlers. The first major adaptation
was the Sod House. People have to have shelr and if there are not that
many trees for you to cut down, then you will use what you do have a lot
of, in this case sod….or dirt! Can you imagine sleeping in a house made
of dirt? Think of the bugs and snakes that could be living in the walls and
ceilings of your house! Often people hung sheets from the ceiling to
keep dirt from falling into food or snakes into beds!
John Deere came up with the first steel plow.
Next came the steel plow. Farmers needed a reliable
plow that was sturdy enough for the hard ground on the
Great Plains. They also had to have one that did not
make them stop and clean it off every few feet. There
was much to much work on a homestead to be wasting
that kind of time.
Something else the homesteaders needed was water.
There was not much water on the Great Plains. Sure
there were creeks and lakes in some places, but over all,
it did not rain much, so it was hard sometimes to find a
good water supply. The wells that had to be dug were
very deep and it was difficult to get the water out of the
well. The windmill would pump the water for the
homesteaders.
Soon many settlers started to raise beef cattle. This would be the start of
many conflicts between farmers and ranchers on the plains. It was also
the start of the Cowboy! Cowboys came about during this time to help
manage the large herds and especially to work on the long cattle drives
to get the herd to railheads to move the cattle to Chicago or other points
east. Chicago was a major meat packing city and the cattle would go
there to be prepared for market.
With all those cows wandering around the plains, it didn’t take long for
the ranchers and farmers to start arguing over whose cow ate whose
wheat and whose land was okay for grazing. So, the invention of Barbed
Wire did a lot to keep the peace and control the herds.
Many of the settlers grew what is called Red Wheat. It was a type of
wheat that the Russian immigrants brought with them. This type of
wheat did so well on the Great Plains because it does not need a lot of
water to grow and was well suited to the harsh conditions of the plains.
Many farmers in the Great Plains used what is called dry farming
to help with the small amount of rain. That means that they
planted crops like wheat that do not need much water and that
they would try to keep weeds from growing. Before the winter
came they would plow up what was left of their crops to help
capture the moisture from the snow
The Transcontinental Railroad was a huge technological advance for the
US. The railroad spanned the continent and connect the east to the
west. Now it was easier for people to move around the country. For the
plains settlers, this meant they could more easily get supplies into the
Great Plains and products like wheat or cattle out of the Great Plains.