In 1873 the United States began a situation that was termed the Panic of 1873. Banks closed. People were left broke, starving, and unemployed. The crime rate reached an all-time-high as men fought what they could not understand to provide food for themselves and their families. It was war, not as it is usually termed but none-the-less, it was still war!
Life for the homesteader, in 1873, was not much different from any other year. Nor did it change drastically in 1874. In the mid-western areas actual cash had always been a scarce item with considerable day to day business being transacted on the barter system. In places such as Kansas hopes were still high in 1874. That year showed expectations of becoming a very good farm year. That summer, though the weather was typically hot and dry, crops were coming along well. By August, wheat and oats were mostly in shock, or topping out at normal, and the pastures were green, adding a promise for healthy herds of cattle. Then in nearly an instant, everything changed—for the worst.
On one bright summer’s day in 1874, on the Great American Plains, a “great, white glistening cloud” began to blanket the western sky. It was on towards nightfall when millions of grasshoppers descended to devour homesteader hopes. The grasshoppers covered every inch of ground, every plant and every shrub. Tree branches snapped under their weight. In a matter of a few days, for hundreds and hundreds of acres, nothing even remotely green existed, except for a blanket of gorged grasshoppers some two feet deep.
Through out the land, to the east greenbacks did not glimmer and to the west green crops did not flutter in the dry prairie wind. All that glimmered through out the land were the shimmering rumors of gold, gold that shone brighter and more abundant with each telling of these fabled riches hidden within the dark forest, and secured by Sioux hands, in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. But even this shining glimmer of hope did not halt the ravaging depression or the ravaging insects.
Railroad construction came to a screeching halt from lack of funds. Wages fell, if indeed a man was lucky enough to have and hold a job. Tramps wandered the land, wondering what had happened to their lives and their country. And yellow fever was on the rise.
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