1935

Black Sunday

Even before that day when it appeared the world was about to end, people in the Panhandle were meeting regularly to pray for rain. The drought had lasted four years and was not yet half over. In Cimarron County, ground zero of the Dust Bowl, the last good wheat crop had been in 1931. Since then, the wheat made next to nothing, or nothing at all. Now it was 1935, and during the last week of March, a single dust storm rolled across Oklahoma and blew away one-quarter of the wheat that had been planted. And still the wind kept blowing, and no rains came.

March and April of 1935 were particularly bad months in the Dust Bowl region, which had already witnessed dust storms by the dozen in previous years. Dust was thick in the air for almost seven weeks, although some days were worse than others. Fifteen storms lasted more than twenty-four hours each, and four storms each lasted more than two days. People in Cimarron County and other areas of the Panhandle thought they had seen everything. On Wednesday, April 11, what was described as the worst dust storm ever to hit Oklahoma blasted across the state. In downtown Oklahoma City, visibility fell to two blocks, and signs could barely be read. But things were worse to the northwest, in the direction of the Panhandle. There, because of the choking dust, people could not see from one room to another. Yes, this was the worst that people had seen—until April 14, 1935, which became known as Black Sunday. Black Sunday gave the Dust Bowl its name.

Many years afterward, residents in places like Beaver, Guymon, Tyrone, and Hooker would remember what happened to them on that day. There were actually worse years for dust storms, if one were making a count; 1937 was probably the most severe for those living in the Panhandle. Yet there was something different about the Black Sunday storm, perhaps because it was Palm Sunday, or perhaps because the day had dawned so blue and clear. Temperatures were rising into the low eighties, and the sun was shining. After church, people packed picnic baskets or went out for Sunday drives. It was that kind of day.

The storm front arrived in northern Oklahoma at about 4:00 p.m., stretching one thousand miles across several states, driven by upper-level winds of over one hundred miles per hour. When it arrived at Beaver, the temperature fell from eighty degrees to sixty-three in fifteen minutes, and then kept dropping rapidly toward the thirties. Winds of over fifty miles per hour buffeted everything in their path, hurling gravel through windows. And with the wind came the dust—thick, dark red silt from some unlucky denuded farmlands to the north. Within minutes, total darkness descended on what had been a pleasant, sunny afternoon.

The population of Oklahoma is over 3.9 million (2017), ranked twenty-eighth in the U.S.

From a distance, the black dust storm looked like something worse than dust, like something almost biblical. Some compared it to the smoke from burning oil. As they saw the huge, roiling black wall approach, people ran for their cellars. One couple who had been out on a drive took refuge with a stranger in her cellar. When they emerged after the initial storm front moved through, they thought that the brunt had passed. There was dust piled throughout the woman’s house. The couple continued in the darkness toward their own farm but had to stop from time to time because they could not even see the radiator cap at the end of their car’s hood. Once they worried that they had driven off the road and stopped to feel their way toward the fence posts they presumed were alongside it. They gave up the idea when they lost sight of their car just a short distance away; without a rope, they might have become lost. Indeed, another story told of a man who wandered a ten-acre garden plot for eight hours before being found. Others claimed that they could not see their hands in front of their faces. Static electricity filled the air, and people received strong shocks when they grasped doorknobs or anything metal.

In Guymon, the Methodists had gathered in their church to pray for rain when the black cloud hit. The minister’s wife had already spent a good part of the morning cleaning the dust from previous storms out of the pews to prepare for the Sunday services. That afternoon, the church was full when darkness suddenly descended. The altar could not be seen from the pews, but some made their way to it to pray more fervently. A few lay in the aisles certain that the end time had arrived.

Besides the Boise City funeral procession that had to turn around en route to the cemetery, perhaps the most unusual event interrupted on Black Sunday was the rabbit drive at Tyrone, in Texas County. A large number of people had gathered to flush out the pesky jackrabbits that had invaded gardens and crops and that provided a source of meat. Spreading out in a long line and carrying strong sticks, they were driving the rabbits from their cover to trap them against a fence. A good time was being had by all, but when the rabbit drovers were within fifty feet of the fence and could see hundreds of rabbits swarming in front of them, the black pall of dust arrived. People fled to their cars, and most of the rabbits escaped. Later, many rabbits, birds, and other animals were found choked to death by the dust. Automobiles also stalled throughout the area, their engines fouled.

Humans did not fare too well in the dust clouds, either. Doctors had made note of the increasing occurrence of “dust pneumonia” in the Dust Bowl region, and an epidemic of it occurred in the aftermath of Black Sunday. Those stricken were brought to hospitals and doctors’ offices, coughing up mud. It is not known how many people may have succumbed to the pneumonia in Oklahoma, but hospitals in one Kansas county adjacent to the Panhandle reported thirty-three dead.

The dust storms of the 1930s were awesome, destructive spectacles. The largest could engulf several states at once, throwing millions of tons of topsoil thousands of feet into the atmosphere and blowing it out to ships at sea in the Atlantic. Scientists later estimated the dust storms of 1935 had removed 850 million tons of soil from the Dust Bowl region. It is amazing that anyone could long endure such an environmental catastrophe, and in fact, Cimarron County lost 40 percent of its population during the decade. The Panhandle as a whole lost nearly one-third of its population. Those who left moved to nearby states and cities or joined the Okie exodus to California. Those who remained held on long enough to watch the rains return at last, beginning in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Panhandle became a productive agricultural region once again, and improved farming techniques, soil conservation measures, and government subsidies helped the farmers there weather the dust storms that came in later decades.