WSP04621

• File Number: 8407.500
• Description: Missouri River basin Comprehensive Framework Study-Volume 1- Report
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 12/1/1971
• Author: Missouri Basin Inter
• Title: Missouri River Basin Comprehensive Framework Study - Volume I - Report
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

U!Jl124

abuses by these interests soon became common practice
in their dealings with the settler. As an agriculturalist he
faced a situatlon thOlt perslsts to the present - the costs
of goods and services needed for production and prkes
received for products of the land were set by forces
largely outside of the ~ettlers' control.
In trying to cope with economic abuses. the settler of
the basin resorted early to politic31 action. From the end
of the Civil War until well into the 20th century. parts of
the basin were in an almost continuous conditIOn of
revolt. This revolt W3S waged primarily through political
pressure of farmers' organizations and political parties as
well as through various cooperatille efforts in the field of
business. Political activity was directed mainly at
monetary dellatioll, railro<Jd abuses, and monopoly
practices_
The 1930's represented the culmination of the
boom-and-bust period. A depression in farm prices and
recurring drought during the twenties had drained much
of the economic strength of the basin. The results were
high rates of borrowing and high taxes, with low
incomes <Jnd financial reserves. Much of the basin's
future income had been mortgaged. Then came the
nationwide industrial and bLlsiness depression which
began ill 1929. There followed the drought ye<Jrsofthe
middle 1930's and a further business recession in 1937.
Cumulatively, these conditions all but bankrupted the
basin's agriculture, but brought abollt far-reaching
changes in the basin's SOCIal alld economic character.

"...., ,-:---

This boom-and-bust period had another outstanding
feature - change. The changes in rhe basin appear to
have been the result of an effort to adjust. through
political action, to new conditions, and a searching for
the solution to problems where the old formulas had
failed and new ones were needed. Political action
resulted largely from the long-term discontent of
economic maladjustment and the serious physical
hazards and economic bondage thai resulted during the
1930's_

PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT

No other single event in the basin's history has had
the deep, long.lasting effects on its economic and social
characteristics as the drought and economic depression
of the 1930's_
Many of the basin's present community leaders are
people who were able to survive the depression without
going bankrupt and whose current decisions, in both the
private and the public sectors, are int1uenced greatly by
their experiences. In another 10 or 15 years, these
leaders will probably be replaced by a younger genera-
tion, but for the present, the linge-ring fear that the
conditions of the 1930's might reappear will continue to
influence their attitudes. Perhaps the best way to
characterize these people is. that they tend: To accept
readily those farming methods which help to reduce the
risks they face; 110t to gamble on new sociaJ and

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Grain Harvest - The Threshing Machine and Then the Combine

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