On June 12, 1934, the Chicago Tribune reported “Grasshoppers in South Dakota”. The article calls the hoppers, “Rocky Mountain Locusts” and reports a great deal of damage in eastern Spink County and concerns they may take flight and spread to other locations.
A few months earlier, the USDA Insect and Pest Survey from March 1934 reported… “In South Dakota we have had much wind and blowing of soil. In some areas the soil has blown to such an extent as to expose many grasshopper eggs, which have dried out and died. Along fences the soil has sometimes accumulated and buried the eggs from a few inches to 2 feet or more. However, there are plenty of eggs that are passing the winter successfully because the winter has been exceptionally mild and dry.”
Leading into the dust bowl years of the 1930’s, grasshopper populations increased slowly from 1928 to 1930. They devastated fields of alfalfa, small grains, corn, vegetables, and a variety of fruit and shelterbelt trees. In 1934, the grasshopper was so prevalent that train locomotives spun out and couldn’t pull the train. Engineers would put one or two rail cars up front. They would crush the grasshoppers ahead of the engine so it could pull the train.
Grasshopper swarms were known to block the sun, and pilots reported them at 2,000 to 9,000 feet above the ground. At that altitude, one swarm was documented averaging 66 miles per day for four days, flying from Highmore, South Dakota, to Beach, North Dakota.
Although severe, the grasshopper problem wasn’t new. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiography, “Pioneer Girl”, you read Laura’s account of the grasshoppers beginning to walk west and then to fly west until they finally quit the country. And O.E. Rolvaag’s “Giants in the Earth” describes “a weltering turmoil of raging little demons” spilling from an ominous cloud. That also is a true-to-life account of the Rocky Mountain locust as told to Rolvaag by Norwegian immigrants who lived through it.
But on June 12,1934, the news of grasshopper swarms and damage in South Dakota had spread east to be published in the Chicago Tribune.
Production help is provided by Doctor Brad Tennant, Professor of History at Presentation College.