What would you think about moving into this region?

Living on the Great Plains

• Vast prairie in the Midwest Region of the US

Living on the Great Plains

• The states that are

part of the Great

Plains

Living on the Great Plains

• What did people think about the Great Plains in the beginning?

• “Treeless wasteland” • “Ocean of grass”• “Big Sky”• “Great American Desert”• Unsuitable for habitation

Living on the Great Plains

Living on the Great Plains

• Vast, open gradually rising (East to West)

Grassland (Prairie)

Living on the Great Plains

• Low rainfall• Dry area most of the year

Living on the Great Plains

• Few rivers• Trees along streams and rivers

Living on the Great Plains

• Frequent dust storms

Living on the Great Plains

• Land eroded by wind and water

Living on the Great Plains

• Tornadoes in the spring

Living on the Great Plains

• Winters with blizzards

Living on the Great Plains• "Blizzard Warning": winds expected to exceed 30 knots (35 mph)

and falling or blowing snow will reduce visibility to less than a quarter-mile for at least 3 hours

• "Stockmen's Warning": when severe winter weather threatens cattle in major ranching areas

• "Traveler's Warnings": when winter conditions make travel difficult or impossible

• "Blizzard of 1997": killed nearly $4.7 million worth of livestock, caused $6 million in farm property damage, and cost farmers $21 million for extra feed consumption

• 1-2 feet of snow typical in a blizzard, in a swath hundreds of miles wide and hundreds of miles long

• Due to the low water content of the snow, blowing and drifting snow is an added problem; snow drifts can reach 10-20 feet in a blizzard

Living on the Great Plains

• Why if it was so “uninhabitable?”• Free land after 1862• Inventions made it usable.• Adaptations made it usable.

Living on the Great Plains

• Free land from the US Government

Living on the Great Plains

• Steel Plow• John Deere

Living on the Great Plains

• Barbed Wire

Living on the Great Plains

• Windmills

Living on the Great Plains

• The Reaper and the Combine

Living on the Great Plains

• Wheat Farming

Living on the Great Plains

• Dry farming-plow and plant in the fall

Living on the Great Plains

• Dry farming-Fields covered by snow

Living on Great Plains

• Dry farming-New growth in the spring

Living on the Great Plains

• Dry farming-Ripening wheat crop

Living on the Great Plains

• Dry farming-Harvesting wheat

Living on the Great Plains

• Beef cattle raising

Living on the Great Plains

• Sod houses

Living on the Great Plains

• Sod house (soddie)

Living on the Great Plains

• Railroad

Living on the Great Plains

• Railroad

Living on the Great Plains

• Why was living on the Great Plains seen as a challenge to the first Americans crossing the Great Plains?

• What inventions and new technology changed those ideas?

• What ways did settlers use adaptations to make it possible to live on the Great Plains?