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ciated primarily with grain elevators. A Farm Bureau with county agricultural agents was started in 1913, affiliated with the national organization in 1920, and continues to provide Platte Valley farmers with information concerning soil and crops as well as sponsoring farmers' supply stores.

It was March 20, 1935, when a pall of dust blotted out the noonday sun in Kansas, Nebraska and even in parts of Missouri and Oklahoma. Over an area of three hundred thousand square miles a thick, unwholesome fog of windblown soil spread, while schools were closed, train and air transportation halted, and on thousands of farms, bewildered chickens went to roost under the impression that it was twilight.

Tons of dirt swept through the air and after a few hours of breathing the intense dust, many became nauseated. Householders packed wet sheets about their doors and windows but the dust moved relentlessly onward, settling to a depth of half an inch whenever the wind slackened.

It was a dramatic day in a dramatic decade, for the damage done to wheat, alfalfa and rye fields in Platte County and the rest of the state by the untoward condition was inestimable. And if it was unnatural to see electric lights burning throughout the day in homes and on city thoroughfares, it was no less unnatural to witness thousands of dead and dying hogs and cattle in this---one of the worst drouths to strike the middle west.

The farmers suffered critically. After the dust storms of 1935 came other freak outbursts -- in one downpour in Platte County, amazed residents watched it rain red mud. The surface soil, after the alternately freezing and thawing weather of the early spring, dried under the dust storms until little was left of the formerly richly productive crops. Reminded of the drouth and bad economic times of the '90's, many farmers went. into debt by mortgaging their land but managed to survive by raising their own food, cutting buying to a minimum.

Although Platte County land brought from two hundred forty dollars to three hundred dollars an acre during World War I, this was considered a vastly inflated price. Prior to 1906, the average price paid for farm land around Columbus had been eighty to ninety dollars an acre. An eighty-acre tract belonging to John M. Curry was sold April 18, 1906, to F. G. Stenger for one hundred dollars an acre. This reflected the economic conditions of the country which had been steadily improving from the drouth and depression of the '90's, when corn sold for as little as ten cents a bushel.

Because Platte County is so predominantly agricultural, the fortune of the farmers is mirrored in all the business and industry of the area. It was the failure of landowners to meet the payments on their loans and mortgages, which was partly responsible for the failure of the Nebraska banks after the "crash" of 1929. However, profiting from their experience of World War I, most of the farmers in Platte County refrained from buying additional land with the profits of their agricultural earnings during the second World War. Instead, the capital was invested in new equipment or found its way into savings and annuities to provide for the economic upheavals which many expected.

One of the positive results of the drouth was the move toward irrigation on the part of many Nebraska farmers. Aided by the facilities of increased power, this trend began in 1935, when the Columbus Veterans CCC Camp worked with the Shell Creek Soil Conservation District to introduce pasture furrows. This was later extended to include other conservation practices such as proper land use, contouring, terracing, grassed waterways and subsurface tillage.

Representing Platte County in 1946 in the second annual Omaha World-Herald five thousand dollar Soil Conservation program, were four farmers selected by the supervisors of the Shell Creek Soil Conservation District. They were: Arthur Osten, John and Adolph Kapels of Creston and John Rollman of Humphrey.

In general, a program of diversified farming is carried out in Platte County as well as in the rest of the state. Thus, if one crop is hailed out, dried up or eaten by bugs, another may survive and save the farmer from economic failure More and more, vocational agriculture is being stressed and the Columbus Kramer High School in 1940 organized a Vocational Agriculture department under the Smith-Hughes Act of Congress which would provide for systematic instruction in the development of livestock or field crops as produced on the students' home farms. Adult classes also are offered and as many as eighty students attended these during the 1944-45 session.

4-H CLUB PICTURES

Also active in the agricultural region of the county is the 4-H Club, whose work is under the direct supervision of the Extension department of the University of Nebraska. With their slogan, "To Make the Best Better," this organization in 1945, had enrolled three hundred members in thirty-five different clubs sponsoring three hundred seventy-one projects throughout the county.

Some of the projects include the: "Save Nebraska Tree Club;" "Monroe Better Beef;" "Bismark Pig Boosters;" "Silver Bells Cooking Club;" "St. John's Keep Well Club;" and the "Early Risers." Still other units emphasize chicken raising, agricultural engineering, farm accounting, clover as a crop, and needle-craft; poultry, sheep, dairy, and horse and mule care.

Along with the programs for farm youth are the Platte County women's extension club whose home demonstration agent appears before more than four hundred members in different parts of the county. Thirty-six units had been organized in the summer of 1947, and the projects undertaken included flowering bulbs, lighting in the home, holiday entertaining and other aspects of farm homemaking.

4-H CLUB PICTURES

Still another agricultural project was the Lions' Pig Club, organized by members of the Columbus Lions Club, 1927-1930, for the purpose of encouraging better breeding and production of hogs and the sanitary techniques necessary to hog raising. These rules were carried out by each farm boy who was given a purebred sow by the local Lions Club.

The young member was also required to attend all club meetings and keep a record of the amount of feed used, in addition to caring for the animal and immunizing it against cholera. Prizes were later given to those who obtained the best results.

Similar projects, designed to appeal to young boys embarking upon a career of farming, have been carried out by the Columbus Rotary Club and other service and civic-minded organizations. They include the Rotary Baby Beef Club and the Future Farmers Club.

MEMBERS OF THE LIONS PIG CLUB

1929-1930 Season

MEMBERS OF THE COLUMBUS LIONS CLUB

Much progress has been made since the founding days when pioneers, Civil War veterans, unemployed workers from the east, and European immigrants, alike, swarmed out to the valley of the Platte to make their living from the soil. In spite of the tenuous economic conditions prevailing around the turn of the century, 1910 saw the largest land sale in one day reported up to that year in Platte County when the following land purchases were made:

More than a little credit for the development of the farming district around Columbus goes to the office of the Agricultural Extension Service under the local agent. Begun in 1932 as an aid to farmers and the general public in combating low farm incomes by improved modern farming practices, the service has been brought about through the financial cooperation of the county, state and federal governments. At first supported by member contributions, it later developed into a tax-maintained institution.

Along with the new techniques have come abundant changes in the life of the average farm family. No longer does isolation --- both of transport and communication --- truncate the farmer from the rest of his community and the world. With the radio, the automobile, telephone and television, the farmer has become an integrated as well as a vital element in the economic life of the whole country. Helicopters spray his crops and planes swoop low over his lands during the winter months to drop feed to his marooned cattle.

No longer is shelling the only pastime for the entire farm family during long, lonely, winter evenings. Aided by the best developments of modern laboratories and the finest equipment to come off the production line, the Platte County farmer has left his ox-team forever to join the rest of the twentieth century world.

© 2005 for the NEGenWeb Project by Ted & Carole Miller