Depopulation of the Great Plains

The Great Plains extend to parts of six additional states: Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

The eastern boundary is about 97 degrees W longitude and the Plains extend westward to the Rocky Mountains and southward from the border with Canada to the approximate latitude of Austin, Texas.

[2] The Great Plains are distinguished by generally flat land and a natural vegetation cover consisting mostly of expansive grasslands.

The initial rush to settle the Great Plains by hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers has been reversed because of several factors.

Farmers also used farming techniques which were unsuited to the dry, windy climate and the frequent droughts of the Great Plains.

This became manifest during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, in which rural flight from the Great Plains accelerated, although the decline in population of some counties had begun as early as 1900.

While urban areas on the Great Plains more than doubled in population, thousands of small towns and communities disappeared.