Because of Bell County’s geographic location, refreshing Gulf breezes prevailed throughout the year, except during summer’s peak. The mild winters were “cold enough to add zest and pep to life,” proclaimed the Chamber’s promotional material. King Cotton thrived, as did other agriculture and livestock, thanks to Central Texas’ moderate climate.
Despite the ominous October 1929 stock market crash back East, the area seemed rock solid, able to recoup.
Until the winter of 1930.
“It took the area a long time to recover from that,” said historian Robert Ozment in an interview. A freakish, deadly cold snap followed by a drought partially triggered the beginning of the area’s economic slide, according to his master’s thesis, “Temple, Texas, and the Great Depression,” written while he was at The University of Texas.
A December 1929 snowfall heralded one of the worst winters on record, slamming the county with an icy fist. Thermometers gradually dropped over following weeks. By Jan. 25, the temperature sank to 2.5 degrees below zero, bested only by 1899’s all-time record of 4 below.
The Salvation Army reported horrific stories: families freezing and destitute, workers laid off because it was too cold to work, babies wrapped in newspapers for warmth, elderly literally freezing to death in their beds. Mayor Lem Burr pleaded for donations of money and clothing through the Daily Telegram.
Just as the temperature hovered close to 0 degrees, a gas main broke two miles west of Troy, cutting fuel to the entire area, including Temple. Hospitals, factories and hotels shut off service and switched to oil- and coal-heating plants to conserve remaining reserves for homes.
Food wholesalers gave the Salvation Army and other charities steeply discounted food or generous credit. Merchants pulled clothing from their stocks to donate. Residents pitched in $1,600. Still it fell short. The Telegram reported a frozen baby in a trash bin. In another home, workers found a 10-day-old baby dead in his bed and his family with no food.
By Jan. 23, “the poor and hungry of every color stormed the doors of the Salvation Army, and it took strong men among the volunteers to handle the situation,” Ozment wrote.
The Daily Telegram’s editor reported deepening horrors of deprivation and frozen death. The lake at what is now the city’s Sammons Golf Links froze solid. Ozment recalled his father drove his car on top of the lake and others went ice-skating, some for the first time in their lives.
As the cold broke finally by mid-February, the Telegram opined, “Temple had a hard time this fall and winter, but we’re over the hump now. Texas is going to prosper in 1930; it’s bound to; Texas is going to prosper.”
Thermometers hit 98 degrees on April 8. The next month, a spate of tornadoes swept through Central Texas, killing 65 and injuring 300. The Red Cross asked for $1,600, but collected just $240, only after the Telegram’s prodding. Then, a summer drought forced farmers to lay off workers.
September rains came too little and too late. Cotton harvest was meager, and prices plunged. Financially strapped charities and churches scoured for food and cash donations.
Drought conditions lingered for the next two years. Occasional, spotty rainfalls caused floods. In Killeen, 1933 floods contaminated the city’s water supply, sparking an outbreak of typhoid. That prompted water superintendent R.J. Adams to begin chlorinating the water with wooden barrels and drip spouts.
By 1934, Texas experienced one of its driest years on record and one the great drought years in U.S. history, according to the National Weather Service’s historical archives. Brownish-grey April dust storms roiled through from the west and continued periodically until 1935.
After one suffocating episode, songwriter Woody Guthrie, whose father and grandfather hailed from Bell County, was inspired to pen “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know You” while living in the Texas Panhandle. With that, he left for California.
The dry spell did not break until May-June of 1935, sparking flooding.
Farmers used ingenious methods to maintain livestock. For example, Willie Zell “Dixie” Ray Hunt of Maxdale said her husband burned thorns off prickly pear cacti so cows could eat the cactus pears, also a source of water.
Spring 1936 was the driest since 1879, but rains broke some misery. By August, temperatures hit highs of 110. Heavy September rains broke the drought, but agriculture was devastated.
Farmers, who had lived on margin at the beginning of the decade, suffered compound whammies of depressed prices, weather, dwindling markets and soil depletion. Between 1930 and 1940, cotton production shrank from 57,574 bales to 30,435. Other crops dropped accordingly.
King Cotton, which ruled the Blackland Prairie in 1930, was close to abdicating the throne, and weather was its major adversary. By 1939, Texas established the Soil Conservation Board to help guide conservation efforts across the state, with its headquarters in Temple.
However, some farmers wondered whether that effort was too late.
pbenoit@temple-telegram.com
