OTTAWA — Seventy-five years ago Wednesday, people across the Great Plains saw boiling, black clouds rushing towards them at more than 60 miles an hour. It was dirt. It was the worst day in what was one of the worst times for the U.S. — the Great Depression and the Dirty Thirties, a series of dust storms that tortured and depopulated the Great Plains. Sue Schulte, of the Kansas Corn Commission, Garnett, grew up in southwest Kansas and heard lots of stories about the Dust Bowl. Her friend’s mother related the story in which she had a birthday cake covered with white icing when the Black Sunday “black blizzard” hit. The family raced into the house and huddled inside until the dust storm subsided. When she went out to find her cake, the icing was black because of the dust, Schulte said. The Kansas Senate recently passed a resolution commemorating the 75th anniversary of Black Sunday. Many experts call the Dust Bowl one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. High winds whipped up the top soil from drought-parched farm fields in the Great Plains, creating monstrous dust storms that blanketed most of the eastern U.S. on Black Sunday. The clouds rolled over the major U.S. cities including Chicago, New York and Washington. Reporters began referring to “the Dust Bowl” after Black Sunday. Spooked by the black blizzard that hit Washington, Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act. American farmers radically changed the way the farmed and cut the amount of soil erosion that caused the Dust Bowl, she said.
Tuesday, April 13, 1 p.m.
