Remembering Weather in the 1930s

 

The current weather conditions, drought, high heat, and lack or water reminds me of recent research into Sherburne County during the 1930s.  A time of worse weather conditions permeated throughout the county.

Farming in Orrock Township after the difficult
weather of the 1930s.  Notice the thick layer of
sand sitting above the darker soil.

In the years 1933 and 1934, the county suffered a major drought.  Farmers remembered the time as a “dust bowl.”  Some residents of Sherburne County remember this time as an end to farming in some areas of the county.  “The light, worn out soils took to the air and drifted like snow over the roads and onto front porches,” is the way historian Herb Murphy described it.  Some folklore of the times described Orrock Township as the “poison ivy capital of the world.”  Other tall tales suggested that “jack rabbits, when passing through Orrock Township, had to pack a lunch because there was nothing to eat.” 

A variety of conservation efforts restored the area of Orrock Township.  Conservation groups planted trees and slowly brought back the land.  The bulk of the township became the Sherburne Wildlife Refuge and the Sand Dunes State Forest.  All of this resulting from the catastrophic drought conditions in the 1930s.  Worse than the weather of 2021, yet events important to remember.

Weather Extremes 1936 Caused Major Challenges to Sherburne Farmers

Weather extremes, the newspapers documented in 1936, wreaked havoc in Sherburne County communities.  Floods and high water in April and a ten-week drouth in August the weather played a significant role in life during a bad year in the 1930s economic depression.

The headlines of the Sherburne County Star News, in April 1936, reported high water marks on the Elk River.  Camp Cozy suffered the greatest catastrophe.  The newspaper reported flooding and ice flows destroyed footbridges crossing the Elk River.  High water destroyed cabins along the river.  Yet, these reports seemed only a precursor to the weather extremes of later in the year. 

In the summer months, heat waves burned crops and killed people in the upper Midwest.  The St Paul newspapers in the summer 1936 reported 100 people dying from heat.  Newspapers noted the heat allowed men to fry eggs on the city pavement.  The heat in Sherburne County seemed lower, yet still destructive.  A ten-week drouth ruined crops throughout the farming communities of Sherburne County. 

The county newspaper reported a lack of rain from June to August 1936.  The heat seemed so oppressive entire families slept outdoors to possibly catch an evening breeze.  By August 13, the newspaper reported “66 days without an appreciable rain.”  When it finally rained, hailstorms wiped out any crops that might have survived. 

On a positive note, the newspapers reported a good hay crop.  Dairy and cattle farmers may survive the drouth as indications suggested farmers held on to a surplus of hay from 1935 and managed an early harvest in 1936. 

A reprieve from extreme weather conditions in September provided relief to the county.  Along with aid from WPA programs, farmers in Sherburne County survived another season of weather extremes.