It was almost 150 years ago that our earliest pioneers faced one of the worst years on their prairie farms when swarms of grasshoppers invaded the land devouring everything in sight. It was at the end of July 1874. For the previous two years there had been good wheat crops and 1874 was no exception. The wheat had just been harvested and the corn fields were promising a good crop. A Jewell County settler, Joel Green, who had a farm west of Burr Oak, on July 21 began to notice swarms of grasshoppers arriving in his fields. Two days later, he recorded “grasshoppers alighted today in myraids, literally covering the corm fields and devouring everything before them.” The following day it was worse, “grasshoppers still commencing their raid, worse and worse.”
A report came out of the Jewell area of the grasshopper scourge. On a quiet day the grasshoppers began dropping from the sky, darkening the sun by their flight. When they dropped on the fields, they were thick as snow, covering everything. The chickens at first acted like the hoppers were a feast, but in a short time those hoppers began whacking against the chickens heads and the chickens ran for protection. Nothing was safe from the grasshoppers and they ate everything. “Sharp ribs on corn stalks were left that would cut one’s face like a knife. Peach pits were left hanging on trees. Every green thing was eaten as well as any clothing that was left outside. The grasshoppers even went into the ground for turnips and onions.” Isaac Basye had bought his farm just three days before the grasshoppers came but he was able to get his cattle through the winter down in the bottoms near M. Kibbe’s place where wild rye grew, along with straw piles that had been brought.
Over near Mahaska, it was reported to be a “beautiful summer’s day, not far from noon. Suddenly the sun seemed to fade away and darkness spread all over the land. Soon millions of grasshoppers began landing, hundreds on each stalk of corn or any article they could find. You could not walk out into the corn fields as your face would be pounded. All vegetation, leather, rope, even wooden rails and poles were eaten smooth. The roads were bare and all the hard ground was literally filled with holes that the grasshoppers made to bury their eggs. This was hard on the settlers and some left the country.”
A settler in Osborne County, Kansas, Mr. Farwell, told of that summer of 1874 being a very dry year for the settlers there and his corn was poor and being put up as fodder as the grasshoppers arrived. Six men were with Farwell that day in the corn fields cutting and shocking with corn knives. All of a sudden the grasshoppers flew down from the sky. The farmers tried to save as much feed as they could. The next day the air was full of the grasshoppers. No one could bare to be out in the fields. “It was like a hail storm covering the ground. They came out of the northwest. While here, they ate everything green, not a thing escaped them.” After the grasshoppers left, the wheat that had been harvested earlier was purchased for 60 cents a bushel to use as feed as feed was so scarce. No corn was left so many of the hogs had to be butchered.“A number of settlers left. It was thought there were only 50 families in Osborne County that winter who did not receive aid sent in by the good people of the east.”
Sunday, July 26, Green’s journal told the grasshoppers began their exodus. The winds went to the north and as the sun began to drop in the west horizon, the grasshoppers swarmed like bees, as they had all day long, but that eve they swarmed high up into the sky as far as a man could see and left.
The year of the grasshoppers was a blow to the settlers and most were left without any money and no crops. A Jewell area farmer stated, “Only the stoutest hearts had any hope. What was to hinder such a visitation every year was asked. Many settlers left the country never to return. It was Jewell County’s darkest hour.” Thankfully the grasshoppers have never been back in similar number.
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