After the dust bowl
Jul 19, 03:56 PM
Late summer insects buzz in Cimarron County, the remote westernmost section of the Oklahoma Panhandle. (It is the only county in the United States that borders four additional states: Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Kansas. In the 19th century, the region - ancestral lands of the Southern Plains Wichita and Affiliated Tribes - was under the flags of Spain and then an independent Mexico before being claimed by the Republic of Texas.
Upon entering the United States in 1845, Texas ceded the area north of 36°30′ latitude to remain a slave state. From 1850-90, the area was called the Public Land Strip, popularly known as No Man's Land. In 1890, the strip of land was opened for settlement for migrants from across the nation and world and incorporated into Oklahoma Territory. In 1907, the area joined the Union as part of the state of Oklahoma, which also included the former Indian Territory, where tribes were forcibly located on the Trail of Tears.
The sounds recorded are much like those heard over the centuries by Plains Indians, European explorers, and the settler farmers and ranchers, many of whom abandoned their spreads during the epic droughts and wind storms of the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Today, the 1,841 square mile area is home to 2,252 hardy residents, many of whom subsist off the land. To them, this is the sound of home.
Recorded by M.J. Alexander.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
IMAGE: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Upon entering the United States in 1845, Texas ceded the area north of 36°30′ latitude to remain a slave state. From 1850-90, the area was called the Public Land Strip, popularly known as No Man's Land. In 1890, the strip of land was opened for settlement for migrants from across the nation and world and incorporated into Oklahoma Territory. In 1907, the area joined the Union as part of the state of Oklahoma, which also included the former Indian Territory, where tribes were forcibly located on the Trail of Tears.
The sounds recorded are much like those heard over the centuries by Plains Indians, European explorers, and the settler farmers and ranchers, many of whom abandoned their spreads during the epic droughts and wind storms of the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Today, the 1,841 square mile area is home to 2,252 hardy residents, many of whom subsist off the land. To them, this is the sound of home.
Recorded by M.J. Alexander.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
IMAGE: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons