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The Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945 <br />The period 1929-1945 proved to be one of dramatic change for <br />Boulder County and the entire state. After the euphoric period of <br />the 1910s and trauma of Ru Rlux Rlan control of Colorado politics <br />during the early 192os residents hoped for a period of calm, and as <br />President Harding termed it, "a return to Normalcy." These hopes <br />were shattered is 1929 when, after the New York stock market <br />crashed, Colorado and the rest of the nation began a slide into the <br />Great Depression. By 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt took <br />office, promising the nation a "New Deal," many Boulder County <br />residents found themselves on the verge of financial collapse <br />(Mehls, et al. 1985:68-69,72). To further exacerbate the already <br />desperate situation, the Colorado plains entered another dry cycle <br />during the early 193os. Rains did not fall, irrigation ditches sad <br />reservoirs began to dry up, and crops wilted in the fields. As the <br />dry cycle continued, wind erosion began to take its toll on the <br />heavily disturbed soil structures, and dust storms, not as severe <br />• as those farther south, became commonplace(Mehls 1984a: 155-157). <br />Franklin Roosevelt's first administration set out immediately <br />to help the nation through federal economic intervention. For <br />Boulder County and the Study Area Roosevelt's farm programs had the <br />greatest impact. Crop price stabilization through the Agricultural <br />Adjustment Administration and later efforts at soil conservation <br />were the foremost of these programs. They allowed farmers who had <br />not already gone out of business to remain oa their land, but <br />failed to fully revitalize local agricultural production. Farmers <br />in the region did not totally recover from the Depression until <br />1940 and the beginning of world Aar II. <br />One of the by-products of governmental efforts was the <br />Colorado-Big Thompson project. The water diversion draws water <br />from the source of the Colorado River (Grand Lake), carries it <br />eastward through a thirteen mile tunnel into the Big Thompson River <br />and thus into the South Platte Valley. The project was authorized <br />in 1937 despite the high level of opposition by environmentalists <br />• 28 <br />