HAWAII, Chapter 18

Chapter 18 of the text reads, "Hawaii represents an exotic, distant tropical paradise to most Americans. Tourism has become the principal growth sector of the economy...producing over $11 billion per year for the Hawaiian economy and employing more than 171,000 people, nearly 22% of all jobs." (Pg. 368-369)

While South Dakota is nothing like Hawaii, tourism is its second largest industry. Mount Rushmore, near the city of Keystone, is South Dakota's top tourist attraction, drawing nearly two million people annually.

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson thought of the idea of carving Mount Rushmore in 1923, in order to draw tourists to South Dakota's Black Hills. He envisioned honoring western heroes such as Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Sioux warriors. He persuaded Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of the Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain in Georgia, also an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, to visit the Black Hills to determine if the project was possible. Borglum chose the location of Mount Rushmore because it was the tallest mountain in the region, composed of smooth, fine-grained granite that only erodes one inch every ten thousand years, and because it faced southeast, with maximum exposure to the sun. When he chose the location, he said, "America will march along that skyline."

Work began on the sculpture in October, 1927, just before the onset of the Great Depression, and ended October 31, 1941, five weeks before the Pearl Harbor bombing. Dynamite was used in the carving, to blast the rock into a general shape and remove rock from the mountain until a thin, three to six inch layer of granite remained. Borglum often complained that he had to use miners to carve his masterpiece rather than artists. According to PBS, "To control the blasting, sticks of dynamite would be cut down to make smaller charges, up to 70 for one detonation. The drill holes would be filled with these caps, and twice a day, at lunch and 4 p.m., the end of the work day, when all the workmen were off the face of Rushmore, the dynamite was detonated. After the mining work ended, carvers followed with the process of honeycombing, in which a series of shallow holes in a closely spaced grid were drilled, then the grids were removed by drilling obliquely, leaving the carvers very close to a finished surface."

Gutzon Borglum and four hundred workers sculpted four faces of United States presidents, sixty feet tall, representing the first 150 years of American history. Borglum selected George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln because they were important in "preserving the Republic and expanding its territory."

In 1933 the Mount Rushmore Memorial project came under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. NPS engineer Julian Spotts worked with Borglum on some of the technical aspects, upgrading the tram to the top of the mountain so workers could move up and down the mountain more safely and efficiently. Spotts also improved the air compressors, used to remove the layers of granite dust. Remarkably, during the fourteen years of construction, no workers were killed.

Borglum was a public relations genius. George Washington's face was covered with a 39 by 70 foot flag sewed by local Rapid City women before it was revealed to the public on July 4, 1934. President Franklin Roosevelt was present at the dedication of Thomas Jefferson's face in 1936, commenting, "I had no conception, until about ten minutes ago, not only of its magnitude, but also its permanent beauty and importance...Let us hope that our descendants will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under." On September 17, 1937, the 150th anniversary of the Constitution's signing, Abraham Lincoln's face was dedicated. And two years later, on July 2, 1939, with newly installed modern plumbing and night lighting, Theodore Roosevelt's face was dedicated. When the flag was removed to reveal his face, the lighting system illuminated it, followed by a fireworks show.

Back of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Controversial faces and location

Mount Rushmore provokes controversy because the United States seized the area from the Lakota tribe after the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877. Previously, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had permanently granted the Black Hills to the Lakota, and they considered them sacred hunting and burial grounds. To many Native Americans, a monument with the faces of four presidents who led the nation during the time of the acquisition of Indian land, is offensive.

Gerard Baker, the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore, was appointed in 2004. In an interview with Ken Burns for The National Parks, Baker said,

Gerard Baker, Superintendent of Mount Rushmore, 2004 - present

"There were two places in my career I told my family I would never work. One of them was Little Bighorn and the other was Mount Rushmore. And I've been superintendent at both of them now. Coming to Mount Rushmore - it was very challenging to accept the job, because for Indian people it means the desecration of the sacred Black Hills; it means the losing of the Black Hills; a lot of negative things.

But I'm proud of the fact that I am the first American Indian to be a superintendent there, telling the freedoms that America has to offer and the democracy that we have in America. When I first came, I'd go out in the park and I would watch people. They would look at those four presidents and they'd get teary-eyed. This place draws emotion. And it should. But we were only telling half the story.

We need to look at all the stories, not only talk about those four presidents and what they did as far as freedom is concerned. We also have to start talking about what happened to everybody. Mount Rushmore gives us that opportunity. We're promoting all cultures of America. That's what this place is. For goodness sake, this is Mount Rushmore. It's America."

www.bluecomic.com/archive/2008

www.redbubble.com/.../132621-12-mount-rushmore
www.travelblog.org/.../Badlands/blog-155551.html
www.buffetoblog.wordpress.com/
www.elefun-desktop.com/products/list/25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rushmore/peopleevents/e_carving.html
The National Parks, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009
Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009

THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST, Chapter 16

Chapter 16 describes the Pacific Northwest as "a land not just of forest, but of exquisite expanses of tall trees reaching straight for the sky, trees that are among the largest on earth, trees that encourage people to stand and stare in awe or admiration..." (Pg. 327)

Pacific Northwest forest

Pacific Northwest

And trees that supplied pioneers with ample materials for building homes.

Horace Baker Log Cabin; Carver, Oregon, 1856
U.S. National Register of Historic Places

If you settled on the South Dakota prairie rather than traveling west on the Oregon Trail to the Pacific coast, you soon discovered trees were virtually non-existent.

Treeless South Dakota Prairie

To adapt to the scarcity of lumber, homesteaders built their houses from blocks of sod. Soddies were made by cutting large blocks of earth from the land and using them to build. The tough, thickly-rooted prairie grass was sturdy, and these dwellings remained cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Sod House, South Dakota

Sod houses were constructed by cutting patches of sod in rectangles, usually 2 feet by 1 feet by six inches, and stacking them into walls. Different materials were used for the roofs, and sod houses could accommodate normal doors and windows. Some pioneers lined the interior walls with canvas or plaster, and stucco or wood panels might be used to bolster the outer walls. Problems with sod houses were that during times of rainfall the walls leaked or the floors became muddy, and snake or insect infestations were common.

Homesteader's Sod House, South Dakota

Modern Sod House, South Dakota

Inside of Sod House

Log house with sod roof

www.rmi-realamerica.com
www.nasa.gov/...2006/forest_changes.html
www.projects.ups.edu/.../NWACC/forest%20habitat.html
www.gettyimages.com
www.americanhistory.si.edu/ourstory/i/photos/sodcavern
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baker_Log_Cabin

CALIFORNIA, Chapter 15

California Cows Are Happy Cows!

The average dairy farm in the United States has 133 cows. Throughout the U.S., 52% of all cows live on large dairy farms, defined as those raising 500 or more cows, with the average being 1,481 cows on the 500+ cow farms.

In Wisconsin, the average dairy farm has 88 cows, only 21% of cows live on dairy farms with 500 or more cows, and the average sized herd on the larger farms is 946 cows.

In Pennsylvania, the average dairy farm has 66 cows, only 10% of cows live on dairy farms with 500 or more cows, and the average herd on the larger farms has 815 cows.

In South Dakota, the average dairy farm has 123 cows, only 26% of cows live on dairy farms with 500 or more cows, and the average herd on the larger farms is 881 cows.

How does California rate?
In 2007, over 90% of cows lived on dairy farms with more than 500 cows, and the average herd on the larger farms was 1,656 cows.

90% of cows grazing on dairy farms with an average 1,656 cows apiece? I doubt if they're out to pasture, and surely not one or two in the pasture as the "Happy Cow" campaign suggests.

California Cows Are Happy Cows?

According to Unhappy Cows.com, "California's dairy cows are crammed into huge lots, where they live covered in mud and their own feces for most of their miserable lives. They are pumped full of drugs to keep them producing such unnatural amounts of milk that their udders often become swollen and infected. They are forcefully impregnated every year to keep them producing milk, and their male babies often end up chained by their necks in veal creates before being slaughtered at just 16 weeks old."

In South Dakota, agriculture is the leading industry, with livestock production an important part of that industry. In 2004, agriculture accounted for $17.8 billion , and livestock production made up $5.7 billion of that total.

Cattle grazing, South Dakota

According to Ag United, "South Dakota has an abundance of land, feed resources, and dedicated farm families to continue to be a national leader in livestock production. Many families are welcoming home high-school and college graduates who want to return to the farm. With farm land prices at record highs, livestock production is a more feasible way to incorporate returning children and their young families into the family farm."

In 2004, South Dakota farmers and ranchers raised 1.74 million feeder cattle.

Farmer-owned South Dakota soybean processors produce 620,000 tons of soybean meal and 11 South Dakota ethanol plants produce 1.3 million tons of distiller's grains annually.

One milk cow will eat 3 tons of hay and 1,460 pounds of distiller's grains over the course of a year.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Old_West
www.andnowawordfromoursponsor.wordpress.com/200608/
www.unhappycows.com
www.lavidalocavore.org/show/Dairy.do?dairyld=929

THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA; TRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, Chapter 14

In Chapter 14, Figure 14.3, there is a map showing American Indian reservations in the Southwest Border area. The text reads, "Although American Indians live in every part of the United States, today most of them are found in areas that white settlers had deemed undesirable...The government's goal was to contain these peoples, and as a result, the great majority of American Indian reservations as well as most Indians live in the Plains and Western states." (Pg. 279)

The Navajo reservation of the Four Corners area, where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, has ten times the population of any other reservation. Arizona and New Mexico combined have a population of nearly 400,000 Native Americans.

Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation was part of the Great Sioux Reservation established in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The land designated as the Great Sioux Reservation included the Black Hills and all the territory west from the Missouri River in the Dakotas to the Bighorn Mountains in western Wyoming. The treaty stated that the U.S. Army would protect the Reservation from white settlement. In 1876, however, the United States, in violation of the treaty, opened up 7.7 million areas of the Black Hills to homesteaders and private interests. By 1889, the remainder of the Great Sioux Reservation was divided into seven separate reservations: Cheyenne River Agency, Crow Creek Agency, Lower Brule Agency, Rosebud Agency, Sisseton Agency, Yankton Agency, and Pine Ridge Agency.

Pine Ridge Reservation Housing

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is located in the southwest corner of South Dakota, with a land area of 3,469 square miles. It is the eighth largest reservation in the United States, and the poorest. On the reservation, the unemployment rate is near 80%. Almost half of the people live below the federal poverty level. Many homes are small shacks without the basics of electricity, telephone service, running water, sewers, or insulation to protect against the cold, South Dakota winters.

The life expectancy on Pine Ridge Reservation is low, 47 years for males and 50 for females. The adolescent suicide rate is four times the national average, and the infant mortality rate is five times the national average.

Pine Ridge Reservation housing

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, nearly $33 million in agricultural production is generated on Pine Ridge Reservation annually, yet less than one-third of the income is returned to members of the tribe.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe operates the Prairie Wind Casino, which began in 1994 in three doublewide trailers. Recently the tribe added a $20 million casino, hotel, and restaurant. The casino employs approximately 250 tribal residents.

Prairie Wind Casino, Pine Ridge Reservation

THE EMPTY INTERIOR, Chapter 13

Chapter 13 mentions the many ghost towns in the Empty Interior, most of them former mining communities, once thriving, that are "now abandoned except for the tourists who come to see their remains." (Pg. 270)

Virginia City, Nevada, 1880s

The Comstock Lode silver strike of 1859 was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States, located under what became the town of Virginia City, Nevada, one of the most famous boomtowns of the Old West. After the discovery of silver was publicized, prospectors flooded the area and, by 1870, the city's population soared to 20,000 people. Mining camps became areas of immense wealth, and the economic boom led to the growth of Nevada and San Francisco. At its peak, Virginia City had a population of nearly 30,000 residents. Mining slowed after 1874, and by the time the Comstock Lode ended in 1898, the city's numbers had declined drastically.

Virginia City, Nevada, today

Virginia City, Nevada

"Today," the text reads, "some of the old abandoned mining centers such as Virginia City are tourist attractions." Virginia City was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and draws over two million visitors each year. It is considered part of the Reno-Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area.

South Dakota, too, has a town rich in Wild West lore - Deadwood, South Dakota. It boomed in much the same way Virginia City did. Though in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills in 1874 and announced the discovery of gold. Deadwood grew from a small cluster of shacks to a boomtown of 7,000 people in just a short time, and became famous as one of the most lawless towns of the West. Prospectors, gamblers, and outlaws were common, and many characters of the Wild West passed through Deadwood.

Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood, 1880s

Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood, SD

The most famous town guest was Wild Bill Hickok. He had been a hunter, soldier, scout, and sheriff, and had brought order to the Kansas towns of Hays and Abilene. But Hickok didn't come to Deadwood for law enforcement, he came to play poker. One day, while sitting in a saloon with his back to the door, Jack McCall, a local thug, walked in the bar and shot him in the back of the head. As Hickok fell dead across the table, his card hand was revealed - a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights - known now as the "dead man's hand."Deadwood was in the news because of the murder of Wild Bill Hickok. Jack McCall's first trial, which resulted in an acquittal, was sent to retrial. Because of a ruling that found Deadwood to be an illegal town, having been founded in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty, the trial was moved to a Lakota court of law, where McCall was found guilty of murder and subsequently hanged.

Deadwood, South Dakota, today

Deadwood was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, but the town was declining. Highway 94, built in 1964, bypassed it. A 1987 fire destroyed several buildings in the historic district, and following the fire, the "Deadwood Experiment" began, which tested gambling as a means of revitalizing a city. Only the state of Nevada and Atlantic City had legal gambling at that time. Deadwood became the first small community in the United States to seek "legal gambling revenues as a way of reinvigorating a town and maintaining local historic qualities." Gambling was legalized in 1989, and immediately the town enjoyed economic improvement in the form of new revenues and development.

www.legendsofamerica.com/we-knightsladr2.html
www.iceclearspirit.com/nevada.html
www.renoscasinos.com/virginia/street2.jpg
www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-southdakota/Deadwood1876-500.jpg
www.legendsofamerica/photos-DeadwoodPeople.html
www.msnbc.msn.com/.../ns/travel-road-trips/
www.media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/21/71021-004
www.freewebs.com/dakotachips/Deadwood.jpg
www.fulltiltpoker365.com/2007/12/full-tilt-poker/
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood,_South_Dakota

THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES, Chapter 12

Nearly all of South Dakota lies within the Great Plains and Prairies region. The state offers an assortment of landforms, many of which are within the borders of National and State Parks and Forests. These, along with monuments, memorials, and other sites of interest, are listed below:

Badlands National Park - "Where the prairies have eroded into an eerie jumble of rock formations holding fossils of creatures dating back millions of years, to the beginnings of the age of mammals." (Ken Burns) Many people describe the Badlands as a "moonscape," including steep ridges, canyons, and spires. Wildlife in Badlands National Park includes prairie dogs, bison, mule deer, and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

Badlands National Park

Mammoth Site - Located in Hot Springs, South Dakota, this is the largest concentration of mammoth bones found in the Western Hemisphere.

Mammoth Site, Hot Springs, South Dakota

Jewel Cave National Monument - Located near Custer, South Dakota. Jewel Cave, with more than 133 miles of passageways, is the third-longest cave system in the world.

Jewel Cave National Monument

Wind Cave National Park - Located near Custer, South Dakota. Wind Cave National Park is really two parks, one below ground and one above. There are more than forty-four miles of underground passages in the park. Wind Cave is named for the strong wind currents that blow in and out of the cave entrance.

Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park

Crazy Horse Memorial - Located near Custer, South Dakota. The Memorial is an enormous sculpture of the great Oglala Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. It is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, a granite mountain similar to Mount Rushmore. Work began on the Crazy Horse Memorial in 1948 and continued until the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, died in 1982. When complete, the head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet high, as compared to the Presidents' heads on Mount Rushmore, which are 60 feet high. If finished, it will be the largest sculpture in the world.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Custer State Park - Located near Hot Springs, South Dakota. Named after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, this park was South Dakota's first state park, and is its largest, covering an area of over 71,000 acres. It is home to many wild animals, and is most famous for its herd of 1500 free roaming buffalo. Other wildlife in the park are elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mountain lions, and feral burros.

Buffalo grazing, Custer State Park, South Dakota

Custer State Park, South Dakota

Mount Rushmore National Memorial - Located near Keystone, South Dakota. Mount Rushmore is a giant granite sculpture of four American Presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. The Presidential Memorial represents the first 150 years of America's history. Each of the Presidents' heads is 60 feet high, and approximately two million people visit Mount Rushmore each year.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Wounded Knee Historical Site - Located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. This monument marks the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, where on December 29, 1890, 84 Sioux men, 44 women, and 18 children were shot by the U.S. 7th Cavalry and buried in a mass grave.

The U.S. Army had orders to escort the Sioux to the railroad for relocation to Omaha,Nebraska. On December 28th, the Sioux had been cornered by the U.S. troops and agreed to turn themselves in at the Pine Ridge Agency. The 7th Cavalry met them there to disarm them. There was confusion during the disarming process, and a scuffle over one deaf Sioux's rifle escalated into all-out bloodshed, with the 7th Cavalry opening fire indiscriminately from every side, killing mostly unarmed men, women, and children. Twenty-five troopers died as well, some believed to have been the "victims of friendly fire, as the shooting took place at point-blank range in chaotic conditions."

Memorial Commemorating Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890,

Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

Wounded Knee Historical Site

www.redbubble.com/.../132621-12-mount-rushmore
www.travelblog.org/.../Badlands/blog-155551.html
www.buffetoblog.wordpress.com/
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www.nationalparks.org/discover-parks
www,naturescapesnet/perspective/southdakota.htm.
www.webstart.com/jed/house/dinosaur.htm
www.planetware.com/i/photo/custer-state-park
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-at
www.nps.gov/archive/wica
www.47whitebuffalo.wordpress.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

THE AGRICULTURAL CORE, Chapter 11

The southeastern corner of South Dakota, including the most populated area of the state near Sioux Falls, is part of Chapter 11's Agricultural Core region. The remainder of the state falls in the Great Plains and Prairie region. Farms and ranches cover nine-tenths of the state.

Agriculture is South Dakota's leading industry, contributing 19 billion dollars yearly to the state's economy. In 2000, there were 31,500 farms in South Dakota, with an average farm size of 1,392 acres. South Dakota's climate is well-suited to agriculture, receiving 14-25 inches of rain and 25-100 inches of snow across the state yearly.

South Dakota ranks in the top ten states nationally in production of corn, soybeans, wheat, millet, flaxseed, sorghum, sunflowers, oats, alfalfa, hay and honey. The rangeland of western South Dakota is home to millions of beef cattle, sheep, and bison. The majority of crops are grown in eastern South Dakota's fertile soils.

Crops grown in South Dakota are:
Wheat - South Dakota produces three different types of wheat: hard red winter; hard red spring; and durum. More than three and a half million acres of wheat are planted each year. Hard red winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in the middle of summer. Hard red spring and durum wheats are planted in the spring and harvested in late summer or early fall.

Because they are high in protein, South Dakota's hard wheats make some of the best bread-baking flour. Wheat protein combines with liquid to form gluten, which provides the structure for baked goods. South Dakota is one of only six states that grow durum wheat, which is used to make pasta.

Wheat farms in South Dakota

Corn - Most of the corn is grown east of the MIssouri River, mainly in the southeastern part of the state. It is the most frequently irrigated crop, with four million acres of corn planted in an average year, yielding over 400 million bushes each year. Across the state, there is a growing number of ethanol plants, which process the corn into ethanol fuel and distillers grain.

Corn fields, southeastern South Dakota

Soybeans - In Volga, South Dakota, soybeans grown in the state are processed into meal and oil. Nearly four million acres are planted to soybeans each year, producing 100 million bushels annually. South Dakota State University is a leader in the development of varieties suited to South Dakota growing conditions.

Soybeans, South Dakota

Sunflowers - Two types of sunflowers are grown in South Dakota, oilseed, which is used for birdseed and vegetable oil, and confectionary, which becomes snack food.

Sunflower farms, South Dakota

Grains - South Dakota is also a leading producer of many small grains such as oats, barley, rye, flaxseed, sorghum, and alfalfa.

Barley fields, South Dakota

www.farmplusfinancial.com/blog/?page_id=291
www.corbisimages.com/images/RTOO3945.jpg
www.postcardsfrom.com/artif/artif-sd.html
www.media.ksfy.com/images/corn-field.jpg

THE SOUTHERN COASTLANDS; ON THE SUBTROPICAL MARGINS, Chapter 10

South Dakota is not southern except for being south of North Dakota. It is completely landlocked and has no coastlands, and would more accurately be labeled sub-arctic rather than sub-tropical. People leave the frigid South Dakota winters to retire in Florida. Despite these huge differences, South Dakota and the Southern Coastlands have one thing in common - hazardous weather systems.

Blizzards are to the Great Plains what hurricanes are to the Southern Coastlands.

In the text and lecture, we learned about the devastating 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Katrina was the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in United States' history, and Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Nearly 1900 people died in Katrina and 120 died in Rita, some from indirect effects such as evacuations, storm surge flooding, drowning in off-shore rip currents, and injuries from fallen trees. The lecture states that the one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused 20 feet and above storm surges. With the failure of New Orleans' levees, Katrina left behind 22 million tons of debris, amounting to 25 times the ruins left in the World Trade Center attack.

Devastation from Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005

South Dakota is sometimes called the Blizzard State, and has recorded temperatures as low as 58 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Blizzards are defined as violent, blinding snowstorms with very strong winds, extreme cold, and great amounts of snow, most of which is fine, dry snow picked up from the ground. The National Weather Service definition for a blizzard requires a wind speed greater than 32 miles per hour, temperature less than 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and visibility not greater than 500 feet. A blizzard is classified as severe when winds exceed 45 miles per hour, temperature is less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and visibility is less than 100 feet.

Train stuck in snowdrift near

DeSmet, South Dakota, 1880s

The text states that "blizzards begin in winter when a very cold, polar air mass pushes south along the Rocky Mountains to meet moisture from a Pacific storm that has moved inland. High winds, intense cold, and considerable amounts of snow are typical of Plains blizzards." (p.239)

A dangerous type of blizzard is a whiteout. In whiteout conditions, downdrafts and snowfall are so thick it is difficult to distinguish the sky from the ground. People caught in whiteouts lose their sense of direction quickly, and pilots in the air are endangered because they cannot tell how close to the ground they are.

The Weather Service writes, "Blizzards are dangerous storms, possibly second only to tornadoes and hurricanes, and they demand the respect of all who must deal with them. Blizzards occasionally strike suddenly, filling a previously calm air with snow driven by strong winds which reduce visibility from miles to feet in minutes.

It was this feature of blizzards that brought terror to the pioneers and thereby furnished credence to the Dakota blizzard legends. The pioneers feared blizzards because they would strike without a hint of warning, frequently on a mild day, catching them miles from home or shelter on the open prairie. In nearly an instant after a blizzard struck, all vestiges of landmarks needed to guide them home would disappear, and death by freezing was the all-too-often result in those early days." The prairie was so vast, a homesteader disoriented in a blizzard might miss his house by a few feet and wander beyond it to the open prairie, where he would soon die without shelter or warmth.

"Now, the advance warning of impending blizzards given by the National Weather Service has greatly lessened the chances of being surprised by a blizzard, or even being stranded in one. Nearly all North and South Dakotans, while respectful of the consequences, now think of blizzards more as minor and temporary inconveniences to their normal lifestyle than as potential killers to be feared."

Man trying to walk during Great Blizzard, East Coast, 1888

But killers they were. In the winter of 1888, just months before the Great Blizzard ravaged the Northeastern United States, killing 400 people and sinking 200 ships, a succession of blizzards terrorized the Great Plains. One of them, named the Schoolchildren's Blizzard, caught people on the prairie off guard because of the unusually balmy January weather that preceded it. For nearly a week the Plains suffered from brutally cold temperatures, but on January 11-12, a warm, moist front of air from the Gulf of Mexico produced a brief time of spring-like weather. People were out of their homes doing chores, getting supplies in town, walking to school, and just enjoying the warm weather when the blizzard struck. An advancing Arctic cold front colliding with the warm Gulf front caused a rapid drop in temperatures from above freezing to 20, and in some places, 40 degrees below zero. Accompanied by high winds and heavy snow, the fast-moving storm originated in Montana in the early morning hours of January 12th, swept across Dakota territory throughout the late morning and into the early afternoon, and reached the town of Lincoln, Nebraska by 3 p.m. the same day. Thousands of people, including many children on their way home from school, were caught in the blizzard.

The Schoolchildren's Blizzard, Great Plains, 1888

illustrated by Dick Taylor, 1974

Five years after the event, the Encyclopedia Brittanica of 1893 recorded,

"In one blizzard which visited Dakota and the states of Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas in January, 1888, the mercury fell within twenty-four hours from 74 degrees above zero to 28 degrees below it in some places, and in Dakota went down to 40 degrees below zero. In fine clear weather, with little or no warning, the sky darkened and the air was filled with snow, or ice-dust, as fine as flour, driven before a wind so furious and roaring that men's voices were inaudible at a distance of six feet. Men in the fields and children on their way from school died ere they could reach shelter; some of them having been not frozen, but suffocated from the impossibility of breathing the blizzard. Some 235 persons lost their lives. This was the worst storm since 1864; the Colorado River in Texas was frozen with ice a foot thick, for the first time in the memory of man."

The Schoolchildren's Blizzard, Great Plains, 1888

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The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1893