It was just about 90 years ago that much of the middle part of the country was dealing with the dust bowl years of the 1930s. There are many stories of the black blizzards and severe drought that took place across the Great Plains.
Some of the dust storms lasted for up to three days as winds from 30 to 60 mph blew the dust and dirt into large drifts. Some areas in the southern plains looked more like a desert landscape as large dirt drifts covered the plains. The red dirt of Oklahoma was picked up by the strong winds and deposited across New England and even on ships at sail in the Atlantic Ocean. The dust was so fine that it blew through the small cracks of houses and then settled on everything.
Clean dishes in cupboards had to constantly be washed because the fine dust would settle on them. Numerous farm animals were killed due to the dust that got into their lungs. The dust bowl was caused by several factors, which included a serious drought, unusual high winds, very hot summertime temperatures and poor plowing methods.
The tractor became widely used in the 1920s and 1930s and this allowed farmers to till more land. When the drought hit, the natural sod of the prairies had been plowed under and that allowed the strong winds to pick up the dry topsoil.