The Dust Bowl. Pics from the 1930's.

My grandparents are from a small town in southeastern Colorado called Walsh. My great grandparents helped build Walsh, which is located along US160 and a railway. These are some photos that my great-grandfather collected of the dust storms that occured in Walsh and surrounding Baca County during the mid 1930's during the peak of the "Dust Bowl".

 

This is the main street through Walsh taken sometime in the late 1930's, maybe early 40's.



This is my great-grandfathers hardware store that he ran for 30 some years, retiring in the late 60's. Taken sometime in the 1940's.



This is a picture of the annual Baca County Festival parade, November 3rd, 1938. As you can see by the sign, they're celebrating those like my great grandparents who stayed in Walsh and rode out the dustbowl.

 

I remember visiting once as a kid during a windstorm that was blowing pretty hard. We were eating dinner at the table and after one particular strong gust, my great grandfather blurted out. "Whew, we haven't had wind this bad since the 30's!"

My mom was a young child during the mini-dustbowl of the 1950's and she remembers it being really scary, especially when my grandfather put on goggles and a wet rag around his mouth and nose and dissapeared out the front door so he could rush across the street to check on his parents. She says she can't imagine the 30's dust bowl, which everyone who rode it out said was 100 times worse.

I got the idea for this thread after watching "The Grapes of Wrath" on FMC. I remembered my grandmother had a CD with a lot of dustbowl pictures so she sent me a copy.

 

If I come across any I'll let you know. I've yet to view all the photos on the CD, these dust bowl pics came from just one folder. My uncle spent a whole summer a few years ago scanning all the old family photos and putting them on CD. He's a middle school administrator and had nothing else to do all summer, lol.