Dust & Bones

Surviving the Plains, 1930–1940

The rain stopped. The wind came. The soil — plowed thin by a decade of wheat boom — began to blow away. Now your family must survive the worst ecological disaster in American history.

Arthur Rothstein, "Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm," Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936.
Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. No known restrictions.

Settle Your Claim

Northern Plains

★☆☆ Moderate

Better rainfall, cooler temperatures, mixed grass prairie. The dust storms hit here too — but not as hard.

Near Bismarck, North Dakota

Central Plains

★★☆ Difficult

The heart of wheat country. You broke the sod and planted fence to fence. Now the wind wants it back.

Near Dodge City, Kansas

Southern Plains

★★★ Punishing

The epicenter. Here the black blizzards are worst, the drought deepest, the soil most ravaged. Many have already left.

Near Boise City, Oklahoma Panhandle
1930
The Henderson Farm