Across The Fence: The Heartland plague of 1874-75

One hundred and thirty-eight years ago, in late July, there occurred one of the most devastating natural disasters to ever hit the Heartland. From the central regions of Canada, out of the Rocky Mountains, the path of destruction swept ever south and eastward.

The eastern slope of the Rocky Mountain Range was its western boundary as it stretched across Montana, the Dakotas and into the western parts of Minnesota. The destruction continued south into Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa, then marched further southward to Colorado, Kansas and Missouri, New Mexico, the Indian territories of Oklahoma and finally into the north and central plains of Texas. The hardest hit was the entire state of Kansas, the eastern one-third of Nebraska and the western edges of Iowa and Missouri.

Within these regions, of the Heartland states, nearly 75 percent of all vegetation was devoured by a sub specie of grasshopper known as the Rocky Mountain Locust.

In some areas of eastern Kansas and Nebraska the destruction was total. The largest swarm of these voracious insects passed over Plattsmouth, Nebraska in 1875. Dr. A.L. Child calculated the size of the swarm by timing the approximate rate of speed as the locusts streamed overhead for a period of five straight days. By telegraphing neighboring towns, to determine the width of the swarm, he was able to calculate that the total mass of locusts was 110 miles wide and 1,800 miles long. Dr. Childs determined that the total mass would cover an area equal to the size of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont combined, approximately 198,000 square miles. The single swarm might well have consisted of more than 12 trillion locusts.

The swarms began in late July of 1874 and continued throughout the summer. The swarms of ’74 laid their eggs in the ground and the continued drought and hot summer of 1875 resulted in swarms up to ten times larger than the year before. Kansas and Nebraska were the hardest hit. Both states had an overwhelming number of hopeful settlers who had arrived before the financial crisis of 1873. Economic hard times in conjunction with continued drought and the final blow of the plague of locusts forced many would-be homesteaders back to their families in the east. Countless others had no relatives to depend on, nor money to afford relocation, and had no other recourse than to tough it out and hope for the best. For those who had to leave, or rather could afford to leave, their homestead claims were granted an extension if they returned the following year.

In August of 1874, at the height of the infestation, the New York Times sent a correspondent to Kansas to cover the plague. He wrote: “Nothing can describe the thorough and utter devastation of this grasshopper plague in Kansas. The insects seem to work together, and swoop down upon a town, beating everything before them. The air is literally alive with them. They beat against the houses, swarm in at the windows, cover the passing trains. They work as if sent to destroy. The plague of locusts in Egypt, as depicted in the Bible is the only account that can graphically describe the grasshopper plague in Kansas. ‘For they covered the whole face of the earth so that the land was darkened and they did eat every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing in the trees or the herbs of the field through all the land in Egypt.’”

The grasshopper invasion even stopped the mighty and modern behemoths of railroad transportation. Grasshoppers were so thick on the rails that trains were stalled when the steel wheels of the steam locomotives could gain no traction on the slippery remains of the squashed mass of bugs.

As entomologist for the state of Missouri, Charles Valentine Riley, wrote a report for the United States Entomology Commission for the year of 1877. Included in his report was this personal observation of the destructive march of the Rocky Mountain Locusts: “In 1875, near Lane, Kansas, they crossed the Potawotomie Creek, which is about four rods wide, by millions; while the Big and Little Blues, tributaries of the Missouri, near Independence, the one about 100 feet wide at its mouth, and the other not so wide, were crossed at numerous places by the moving armies, which would march down to the water's edge and commence jumping in, one upon another, till they would pontoon the stream, so as to effect a crossing. Two of these mighty armies also met, one moving east and the other west, on the river-bluff, in the same locality, and each turning their course north and down the bluff, and coming to a perpendicular ledge of rock 25 or 30 feet high, passed over in a sheet apparently 6 or 7 inches thick, and causing a roaring noise similar to a cataract of water.”

The locusts also invaded parts of Colorado. Mr. H. McAllister of Colorado Springs recorded his own observations: “In 1875, early in August, a swarm suddenly came down. The insects came with the wind, and alighted in a rain. The ground was literally covered two and three inches deep, and glittered "as a new dollar" with the active multitude. In alighting, they circle in myriads about you, beating against everything animate or inanimate, driving into open doors and windows, heaping about your feet and around your buildings, their jaws constantly at work biting and testing all things in seeking what they can devour. The noise their myriad jaws make when engaged in their work of destruction can be realized by any one who has 'fought' a prairie fire or heard the flames passing along before a brisk wind -the low crackling and rasping; the general effect of the two sounds is very much the same.”

The locusts came in 1874, their path of destruction sweeping the entirety of the central United States. Wherever they laid their eggs, in the barren fields that they had stripped of all vegetation, the hatchlings emerged the following year. They then continued the devastating onslaught until late summer of 1875 when the hoards of insects suddenly took wing and returned to the northwest, from where they had come.

From the 1850’s through the late 1890’s there were no less than eight separate invasions of the Rocky Mountain Locust across the Great Plains. However, the invasion of 1874-75 was the most destructive on record. By 1902 the Rocky Mountain Locust was considered extinct, though there have been subsequent grasshopper plagues of other species since that time.

My great-grandfather Nolting, an early settler in northeast Kansas no doubt survived the plague of 1875 though oddly enough I never heard any stories about the damage that surely occurred to his crops and fields.

History also records a similarly destructive invasion of grasshoppers in northeast Kansas in 1919 and although my grandfather was 30 years old at the time I do not recall any stories being told about that infestation. However I have found that the citizens of northeastern Kansas waged a serious war against the marauding hoards. There were 27 Kansas counties who partnered with the Kansas State University Ag Department and prepared a 5,500 ton grasshopper “cocktail” consisting of 2,000 tons of bran, 100,000 gallons of syrup, 60,000 lemons and 100 tons of arsenic. The effectiveness of this concoction was uncertain.

My personal connection with grasshopper plagues comes from my dad, who was 13 years old in 1935 and witnessed their awesome and destructive power. Dad was the designated water boy on my grandfathers threshing crew when the hoppers invaded Atchison County, Kansas. He remembers what appeared to be a huge black cloud that stretched across the northwestern horizon. As the morning progressed the cloud became larger and closer until it began to darken the mid-morning skies and finally hid the sun. There came from the cloud the sound of rushing water and a loud humming.

As the cloud descended on the northern edge of the fields, my Grandpa Nolting knew what it was and ordered the threshing crew to take cover. The grasshoppers came down in an 80-acre cornfield and Dad watched the green stalks disappear as the hoppers marched through the field. The field was stripped bare by nightfall and when they had finished there was no vegetation remaining. The infestation lasted several days and the destruction was complete. All foliage was gone: crops, grass, hay, tree leaves and bark were eaten by the ravenous insects. Wooden handles of pitchforks, left behind by the threshing crew, were eaten. Clothes hung on the wash line were devoured along with leather harness off the teams of horses and the canvass belts of the binder. Gardens were stripped bare and the hoppers even followed the roots of potato plants and consumed the potatoes underground.

One can only hope that such a widespread invasion of insects will never again plague the Heartland. However, despite modern agricultural methods, herbicides and pesticides, one can never be certain.

Note: I must make a correction to the Jack Slade story of two weeks ago. I had relied on my sometimes faulty memory and erroneously placed Cold Springs and Jules Reni’s killing south of Bridgeport, Nebraska. However, when I recently drove past Cold Springs, which is actually just south of Torrington, Wyoming, I realized my error. Please accept my apologies for any confusion and for my inexcusable ‘creative’ geography.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. To contact Tim, email; [email protected]