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Fall 1985

The Garden-Desert Continuum Competing Views Of The Great Plains In The Nineteenth Century

John L. Allen University of

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Allen, John L., "The Garden-Desert Continuum Competing Views Of The Great Plains In The Nineteenth Century" (1985). Great Plains Quarterly. 1831. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1831

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE GARDEN .. DESERT CONTINUUM COMPETING VIEWS OF THE GREAT PLAINS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

JOHN L. ALLEN

In the central portion of the great American Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a there lies an arid and repulsive sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing desert which, for many a long year, served as but silence-complete and heart subduing a barrier against the advance of civilization. silence. From the Cordillera to Nebraska, and from the in the north to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the south, is a of desolation and silence . . . enormous plains With these words, a nineteenth-century which, in , are white with snow and, British author-who might better have stuck in summer, are gray with the saline alkali with the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories that dust. They all preserve the common charac­ made him famous-illustrated a conception of teristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and the American Great Plains that was, according misery . ... In this stretch of country there is to the conventional historical interpretation of no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining American images of the interior, the dominant to life. There is no bird in the steel-blue view of that region during the first sixty years heaven, no movement upon the dull gray of the 1800s. American historians and geog­ -above all, there is absolute silence. raphers have argued that the myth of the Great American Desert dominated the pre­ Civil War view of the Great Plains and that it proved itself to be very hard to eradicate from John L. Allen's major publications in historical American maps and minds. 1 It was this con­ geography and the environment include Passage ception of the plains as desert, according to the through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the traditional interpretation, that caused the Image of the American Northwest (1975). He is American folk migration westward to leap professor of geography at the University of Con­ over the region during its drive to the Pacific in necticut. the 1840s and 1850s. Haunted by visions of broiling sands and blinding sun, [GPQ 5 (Fall 1985): 207-220.] hastened across the plains between the Mis-

207 208 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985 souri River and the to the people. more attractive of and Califor­ This conventional understanding of Amer­ nia. The Great Plains were a barrier to be ican attitudes toward the Great Plains in the crossed with all possible speed during the nineteenth century is neither completely inval­ migrations, and the settlement of the great id nor necessarily incorrect; but it is too western agricultural region was delayed several simplistic to be fully satisfying. The contention decades by the Desert image. that the majority of Americans held to a But this predominant view of the plains as Desert conception of the Great Plains before Desert did not last forever-or so goes the the Civil War and then to a Garden concept conventional wisdom. During the years follow­ afterward stems from an epistemology based ing the Civil War, the Desert image was upon induction, where error results from the replaced by a counter-myth, a rival fancy: a failure to follow proper inductive procedures view of the plains as Garden of the World. and from overgeneralization based upon too few facts.4 To claim the universal acceptance, It is a museum of wonder and value .... Its at any given time, of stereotyped images of the surface was covered with fields of grain, Great Plains is to ignore-as the holders of whose market proceeds would more than those myths themselves ignored-the presence pay for the land; and near the center was a of a considerable array of data to the contrary. spring and a grove which encircled a happy Proponents of the conventional interpretation home filled with many tokens of prosperity have argued the existence of nearly universal and the merry music of children. Half myths of Garden and Desert on the basis of concealed from view were , pens, the geographical lore available to the literate coops, granary, shed for wagons, plows and American public during the pre- and post­ machinery, all in good order, while farther Civil War periods. The failure of this argument away and central in a grass plat shaded by lies in a basic misunderstanding of geograph­ two friendly elms was a white school house. ical images or in a misunderstanding of how In the distance it looked like a pearl in an geographical information or impressions are emerald setting. Z acquired, transmitted, modified, and retained within the minds of a people. An image cannot After the war, as Americans moved into be defined only on the basis of the geograph­ the Great Plains, up the valleys of the Platte ical information available. It is not enough, for and and rivers, they began to example, to say that because travel accounts rebel against the slanderous terminology of the mentioned desert conditions and some geo­ Great American Desert proponents of the graphies and school textbooks of the period period before 1860. Followers of the traditional between 1830 and 1860 printed "Great Ameri­ interpretation have eloquently recounted how can Desert" in the blank spaces west of the the plains settlers replaced the myth of the that the majority of Ameri­ Desert with the myth of the Garden.) From cans during those years thought of the plains earliest colonial times, Europeans and Euro­ as a desert. Nor is it enough to say that because peans-become-Americans had seen the land of the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, and North­ the seaboard settlements as a New ern Pacific railroads, along w!th the western World Garden, long kept virgin to redress the land speclilators and newspapers, flooded the overcultivation of the . It was easy country with literature describing the Great to extend this myth beyond the Mississippi Plains as Garden of the World that the Garden and to view the plains, like the seaboard of view became dominant in the years following earlier times, as a land of promise, an Eden of the Civil War. . vacant and fertile land held back by the The popular view of the environment or of Creator until it was needed by his chosen regions cannot be treated this simplistically. THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 209

To begin, the Great Plains themselves do not pers and periodicals; the informal lore includes constitute a unified or homogeneous region: in private correspondence and folk literature. terms of geographic reality, some areas are While not all the available literature has been more gardenlike while others are more desert­ investigated, a representative sample of each like. But more important is what the mind type for each of the three time periods has does to that geographic reality. The mind is been utilized. These samples have been se­ like a mirror that reflects what it perceives; the lected so as to include materials published and nature and appearance of the reflected image is available in different geographical areas and determined by the conditions of the mirror­ settings (such as the Northeast, the Southeast, whether it is cracked, warped, spotted, or the Middle West, the frontier, urban areas, otherwise modified by both collective and and rural areas). Each sample group was personal experience. All images-and this is subjected to content analysis for key words particularly true of regional images or patterns and phrases carrying connotations of either of belief about the nature and content of a Garden or Desert elements. For example, definable area-are distorted and discolored by words such as "desert," "barren," "sterile," and the quality of the minds in which they have "arid" were judged to be indicative of a Desert been lodged. 5 It is for this reason that William image of the plains, while words such as Goetzmann has spoken of explorers as being "fertile," "pleasant," "salubrious," "pasture," "programmed" by the times and conditions in "meadow," and "" were assumed to which they operated.6 And it is for this reason carry Garden connotations. On the basis of also that we cannot speak accurately of "an the content analysis, judgments were made as image" of the Great Plains in the nineteenth to the probability of the image held by a century. Rather, we must speak of images; particular group in a specific region during a during the nineteenth century there was no particular time period being oriented toward single, universally accepted view of the plains. either the Garden or Desert of the Rather, at any given time during the 1800s, continuum of opinion. In addition, lengthier there were a number of images, arranged on a descriptions that seemed typical of the images continuum of opinion with the Great Ameri­ (again, on the basis of the content analysis) can Desert and the Garden of the World have been selected and are cited as examples.; occupying polar positions. Acceptance of a view somewhere along this continuum de­ MR. JEFFERSON'S GARDEN AND THE pended in part on the nature of the geograph­ DESERT OF THE LOUISIANANS, 1800-1825 ical information available, but also on the geographical location and social position of the The dawning of the nineteenth century perceivers and on their motivations and goals saw few Americans indeed who possessed with respect to the plains. information-or even opinions-on the Great It is the purpose of this essay to present a Plains. The region was partially known to brief description of the continuum of opinion explorers and fur traders of France and Spain, as it existed during three periods of the the European colonial powers that had been nineteenth century: 1800-1825, 1825-1860, active in the Missouri since the middle and 1860-1895. The source materials include of the preceding century.s The image generated both formal and informal geographic lore from by the account of the early Louisiana which literate Americans developed their explorers was decidedly desertlike, with refer­ conflicting images of the Great Plains between ences to "barren and dreary tracts" appearing 1800 and 1895. The formal lore consists of in the explorers' travel accounts; but only a references to the plains in travel accounts minimal amount of this lore was available to (unofficial diaries and official government the general American public until the sale of reports), geographies and atlases, and newspa- the vast territory of Louisiana to the young 210 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985 republic in 1803. 9 Then the floodgates of total of only 6 times and the word "desert" (as geographical data were opened and a flow of an expression of aridity rather than of open­ information about the territory (which includ­ ness or emptiness) appeared not at all. Many ed virtually all of the Great Plains region) burst people believed that the immense plains of the upon an American population that was ill­ interior stretched all the way to the Pacific equipped to understand what it was they had and, contrary to the best information from the acquired. By the end of 1804 editors of traders, that these plains were newspapers and magazines, government offi­ not barren and sandy or even partially arid. cials, land speculators, and publishers in One of the foremost authorities on the western general had dredged up and reprinted nearly regions of was Jefferson him­ every piece of information currently obtaina­ self; in his official report to Congress on the ble on the Louisiana Territory. From this lore, lands of Louisiana, he noted the treeless ness of and from the recorded reactions of Americans the region drained by the Missouri and Platte to it, it is possible to derive the nature of rivers but attributed the lack of forest vegeta­ American attitudes toward the plains in the tion to a soil that was simply too rich for the opening years of the nineteenth century.1O growth of treesY In 1804 the plains were The in 1804 was an agricul­ Garden, full of hope and not disillusionment, tural nation with an administration in Wash­ and the word "desert" still meant the same ington that was operating on President thing as "deserted." The poets would record Jefferson's assumptions of the ideal agrarian the fact: republic. In spite of the fact that among some segments of American society-particularly in Toward the desart turn our anxious eyes, the urban centers of the Northeast-agrarian To see 'mong wilderness stately cities rise, expansionism was viewed with disfavor, most Where the wild beast now holds his gloomy American images of the interior during that den, year seem to have been colored with optimism To see shine forth the blessed abodes of and hope-a hope that the lands west of the men. Mississippi would provide a firm base for the The rich luxuriance of a teeming soil, agrarian republic and an optimism that this Rewards with affluence the farmer's toil, would prove to be the case. The early contro­ All nature round him breathes a rich versy over the purchase of Louisiana had perfume, engendered frequent references, in the Ameri­ His harvest ripens and his orchards bloom. 14 can press and in congressional debates, to the contemporary French and Spanish view of the The year 1804 was about the last time in trans-Mississippi West as inhospitable in the the nineteenth century when anything ap­ extreme. 11 But as the circulation of information proaching unanimity of opinion about the about Louisiana increased, it became clear that Great Plains prevailed. Two decades later, the the pessimistic viewpoint was acceptable only enthusiastic and nearly unanimous view of the to a small minority. The predominating con­ Jeffersonian Garden had deteriorated into a cept of the plains, as evidenced in the popular continuum of opinion that ranged from Gar­ press, was that the region was Garden, with den to Desert. By 1825 the Great American soils extremely fertile and benign, soft, Desert had begun to appear as a name and as a and (in a favorite word of the time) "salu­ unifying image of the Great Plains in some of brious." the source materials. A generation of govern­ A survey of periodical and other literature ment explorers in the West had encountered pertaining to the plains in the year 1804 shows what their forest backgrounds led them to a total of 54 items.12 In these, the words believe were arid conditions in the plains, and "barren," "sterile," and "waste" appeared a their reports established, for some elements of THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 211 the population at least, the idea of the interior AMERICAN DESERT. There is an exten­ plains as deserts akin to those of or sive desert in the territory of the United Araby.ls. States west of the Mississippi which is Of all the travel accounts during the first described in Long's Expedition to the quarter of the nineteenth century, none was Rocky Mountains. It extends from the base more important for fixing the idea of the of the Rocky Mountains 400 miles to the Desert in receptive minds than Edwin James's east and is 500 from north to south. There account of Major Stephen Long's expedition are deep ravines in which the brooks and to the central plains in 1820. 16 Some present­ rivers meander, skirted by a few stunted day writers have tried to fix the blame for the trees, but all the elevated surface is barren Great American Desert concept on such desert, covered with sand, gravel, pebbles, explorers as Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, etc. There are a few plants but nothing like John Bradbury, Henry M. Breckenridge, or a tree is to be seen on these desolate plains, Thomas Nuttal.l? Each of these had mentioned and seldom is a living creature met with. the presence of desert conditions on the Great The Platte, the , and other rivers Plains, but most of these references were flow through this dreary waste. 19 location ally restrictive: Lewis and Clark's desert, for example, was limited to a 15-to-20- In spite of the seeming dominance of the mile stretch of along the upper Desert concept in period literature and in spite Missouri. Although some observers, such as of the conventional interpretation that most Pike, were more explicit in describing the Americans viewed the Great Plains as Desert Great Plains as a vast, arid region and a during this period, a survey of the source potential barrier to westward settlement and material reveals that the image of the plains as migration, the concept did not receive wide Desert seems to have been restricted to certain circulation until the publication of the James portions of the country and to certain seg­ account in the early 1820s. From the central ments of the population.20 Content analysis of portion of what is now to the the literature indicates that the Desert image Rocky Mountains, James noted, there was strongest in the urban centers of the stretched a wide and sandy desert: Northeast, particularly in , and weakest in the rural areas of the South and We have little apprehension of giving too trans-Appalachian West. Among the geo­ unfavorable an account of this portion of graphies and textbooks printed during the the country. Though the soil is in some entire period from 1820 to 1825, there were ten places fertile, the want of timber, of naviga­ that described desert conditions in the Great ble , of water for the necessities of Plains, although only two of these referred life, render it an unfit residence for any but specifically to a "Great American Desert." a nomad population. The traveler who shall Eight of the ten were published and received at any time have traversed its desolate sands their widest distribution in New England. Of will, we think, join us in the wish that this all the geographies available in 1825, only region may forever remain the unmolested about half mentioned the presence of deserts haunt of the native hunter, the , the in the western interior and all but two of these wolf. 18 were published in the Northeast. In newspa­ pers and periodical literature published in the It did not take long for this colorful urban centers of , Hartford, , description to reach the public, and by 1825 a , and Baltimore, descriptions of number of newspapers in the major urban the interior as desert outweighed other descrip­ centers of the Northeast had printed the tions by a 3-to-2 ratio. In small- newspa­ following account or one similar to it: pers in New England and New York, however, 212 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985

desert descriptions were noted in only 2 of 34 geography books published in the first half of papers examined. And in the papers published the 1840s described the plains as a desert and in , Alexandria, Richmond, and that 5 of the 12 referred specifically to the Charleston, references to "plains," "," Great American Desert. zz But again, it is also "meadows," or "" were three times as true that 11 of the 12 were published in the frequent as were references to "desert." De­ Northeast." A survey of newspapers and scriptions of the interior as desert were even periodicals for 1845 reveals almost the same more rare in small-town papers in the South situation in regard to the Garden-Desert and in all papers of the trans-Appalachian continuum. The major urban papers of the region: only two papers (in Cincinnati and Northeast carried references to desert condi­ New Orleans) carried desert descriptions and tions more than twice as frequently as refer­ both of these were reprints of earlier French­ ences to prairies, plains, meadows, pastures, or Spanish lore. Although the Great American savannas. For the small home-town weeklies Desert had become, by 1825, a feature of the picture is different, and descriptions of American attitudes toward the plains, it is deserts in the western interior were rare in the clear that we are seeing the beginning of rural areas of the Northeast and almost division of opinion along regional and social nonexistent in the South and West. lines. Acceptance of the Desert concept was If, as the evidence suggests, the notion of more likely among the well-educated elite, the plains as a desert was not the exclusive particularly in the Northeast, and acceptance view of the interior in 1845, particularly of the Garden notion greater among the rural among the segments of the population most populations, particularly in the South and likely to be emigrating (the rural populations, West. There was a tendency, then, for those both in the settled East and in the frontier who opposed western expansion to be recep­ areas of the West), then some other explana­ tive to the Desert image, while those who tion must be offered to explain the failure of favored aggressive westward expansion be­ the folk migration to settle on the plains lieved that the plains were that during the 1840s and 1850s. The answer would would blossom like the rose when occupied by seem to lie in the nature of the emigration and American settlers.21 of the migrants themselves. A clue may be found in the works of one of the migrants' most influential spokesmen, John Charles THE GREAT MIGRATIONS AND THE Fremont. In the reports of his expeditions of GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM, 1825-1860 1842 and 1843-44, after he had crossed what A generation later, by the middle of the earlier government explorers had termed that 1840s, the concept of the plains as Desert had Great American Desert, Fremont gave the become prevalent, but contrary to the conven­ Desert notion short shrift. "The valley of the tional interpretation, even in the forties the Platte," he wrote, "looked like a garden; so rich Desert image was not the exclusive one. The was the verdure of the grasses, and so luxu­ year 1845 is critical, for it marked the real riant the bloom of abundant flowers."24 But if beginning of the migration of Americans the Great Plains were Garden, what lay across the plains to Oregon and California. beyond was even better in Fremont's estima­ An examination of the sources of American tion, and herein lies the primary reason for the images of the plains in that year does not leapfrogging American migration across the support the contention, inherent in the con­ plains. ventional argument, that the folk migration By 1845 the was burst­ failed to halt on the Great Plains because that ing with what one Missouri newspaper editor region was viewed so unfavorably by the called "perfect Oregon fever." The propagan­ migrants themselves. It is true that 12 out of 13 dists, such as Fremont and his father-in-law, THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 213

Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who encour­ the Great American Desert by name and only aged migration to Oregon, did not deny the 3 out of 160 writers used the word desert in agricultural potential of the plains. They reference to the territory east of the Rockies. 3D simply made Oregon-as a concept, not really An examination of 31 travel accounts of forty­ as a geographical location-the logical and niners turns up only two references to the desirable culmination of the American drive to existence of desert conditions.3! An analysis of the Pacific that was finally articulated in 1845 92 other travel journals and diaries from the as "Manifest Destiny." First to the western years preceding the Civil War uncovers only -the gaps could be filled in later. The 17 references to desert conditions in the Great propagandists had the faith of the folk and Plains. Significantly, the great majority of they spoke with the voice of the folk-a voice these writers were from New England and the that those who wrote the geographies and Middle Atlantic states. Of the 35 diaries in this drew the maps carrying "Great American group that could properly be called "folk" Desert" captions seldom heard. The drive to diaries-written by people from rural back­ the West must be carried all the way~not grounds-there were none that refer to the because what lay in between was worthless but Great American Desert by name and only 2 because what lay at the end of the rainbow that describe desert conditions.32 trail was so good. 25 "The plains and prairies of A survey of the literature for 1860 further the interior," wrote one Oregon propagandist, supports the idea of a regional division of "are extensive and are verdant with grass and opinion regarding the Great Plains. In the shrubbery of luxuriant growth." But the land metropolitan newspapers of the East, the beyond the Rockies was preferred because it majority view was still of the Great Plains as a was not as level as the plains and "an region that one Boston paper called "uninha­ undulating surface of territory or a surface bitable by a people depending upon chiefly broken into hills and mountains is, in for their subsistence."33 But with the incurable almost every consideration, preferable to one optimism of the frontier, 43 out of 51 descrip­ that is level."26 Another proponent of Oregon tions of the Great Plains in papers published in settlement described the of the plains Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missou­ as "salubrious, little subject to extensive and ri, , and were couched flooding , more remote from the sea and in favorable terminology. The area to which sheltered by stupendous mountains." But Edwin James had given the appellation "Great beyond the Rockies, to the West, was a climate American Desert" had become "an intermina­ even better: "remarkably mild . . . the most ble meadow of infinite wealth and value." favored spot of Providence . . . a land of Among the numerous travel accounts and savanna."27 It is apparent that the drive to guide books published between 1845 and 1860, Oregon went considerably beyond any simple the descriptions of the Great Plains were even rejection of the land that lay athwart the more glowing. The authors of the guidebooks, migrant's path to the land of savanna. 28 in particular, performed feats of geographical To substantiate further the point that the legerdemain, shrinking the Rockies to mole­ folk elements of American society did not see hills and transforming the plains to flower­ the plains as Desert during the great migra­ bedecked highways. Witness this description of tions, one need only look at the records of the valley of the Platte: "As a whole it presents those who crossed the plains on their way to to the eye a pretty flower garden, walled in by Oregon or California, and then consult the huge piles of argillaceous rock, and watered by literature for the year 1860, when the migra­ murmuring streamlets whose banks are orna­ tion began to diminish.29 A survey of the mented with shade trees and shrubbery."34 The diaries of Mormon migrants of the late 1840s, soil of the plains, according to many authors, for example, shows that no diary mentioned was unbelievably fertile, producing sponta- 214 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985 neous crops of oats, flax, and luxuriant grasses: the Great Plains. This economic activity was "Here is the finest pasturage for , sheep, immensely successful during the seventies and or . Hundreds of thousands of acres are gave rise to a new conception of the plains­ covered with barley. The flocks of all New they were now "the All Year Grazing Coun­ England might be fattened here."JS If the try," "the Great Winter Grazing Ground," or traveler tired of his journey to the riches of "the Great Western Pastoral Region." These Oregon or California, the implication of the terms appeared in more than half of the guidebooks was that he might take a farm at newspaper descriptions of the plains in 1870, almost any point between the Mississippi and in all sections of the country. But not all the Rockies. Americans were sold on the image of the plains The issue is not whether these garden as a perennial pasture. To the farmer of the descriptions of the Great Plains, any more Midwest, to the railroads, and to the land than the wide and sandy desert of Edwin speculator, the notion of the plains as a James, were accurate reflections of the plains livestock region was unacceptably exclusive; landscape. The issue is that, in 1860, some by the middle of the 1807s terms such as people were willing to accept as gospel the "Continental Wheat Belt" and the "Northern Desert of the atlases and geographies, while Tropical Belt" began to appear, particularly in others believed in the Garden of the those eastern papers manipulated by banks guidebooks. Acceptance or rejection of these that were, in turn, controlled by the railroads. two polar images-and the range of opinion in The concept of the "Isothermal Zodiac," a between-depended not upon the mere avail­ pseudoclimatic theory developed in the 1850s ability of information but on the mental set of that "proved" that the central portions of those to whom the information was trans­ North America were the optimum climate for mitted. In the year preceding the Civil War, agriculture, was rejuvenated in the seventies.J6 then, there was still a range of opinion about Most of the propaganda about the farmers' the plains environment, but the range had paradise on the plains came from the railroad been compressed somewhat. That is, those companies, who were anxious to sell at good who held the view of the plains as Desert were prices the lands that the government had no longer as numerous or as definite in their granted them along their routes. Publicists for descriptions as they had been in, say, 1845. the railroads assailed any notions of the Desert Nor was the view of the Garden of the World as harmless myth and-in spite of the fact that as widely accepted as it had been at the the glowing descriptions of the plains as beginning of the century. A continuum still Garden of the World stimulated criticism-the existed, however, with the well-educated of the publicists were believed. Their propaganda Northeast tending toward acceptance of the influenced the thousands of farmers who Desert concept and with the rural folk popula­ moved onto the lands beyond the 100th tion of the interior leaning toward the Garden meridian in the -many of them, curious­ definition of the Great Plains. The structure of ly enough, moving back from the Pacific and this image continuum would undergo consid­ intermountain fringes. 17 It also influenced the erable change during the last third of the United States government; much of the federal nineteenth century. land policy in the last third of the century was predicated on the notion that the plains were Garden or, at least, could be made Garden by GRAZING GROUNDS, , GARDEN, AND GRASSHOPPERS: 1860-1895 plowing the grasses under, planting trees, or irrigating the drier soils.J8 The railroads contin­ During the years following the Civil War, ued to enlist western adventurers, army offi­ the livestock industry moved north from cers, and government officials in their cause.J9 and began the first serious utilization of By 1880 the view of the plains that was most THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 215 widely reported in the newspapers, the geo­ exuberant of any section this side of Califor­ graphies and atlases, and the regional descrip­ nia. In this respect it is a new : it may tive literature was of the plains as prime prove to be a new Eldorado.43 agricultural land.40 Witness the following: The railroad propagandists had their way, Ride over these fertile acres of Dakota, and and in the editorial policies of newspapers in behold the working of this latest triumph of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincin­ American genius. You are in a sea of wheat. nati in 1880, opinion ran 3-to-1 in favor of the The railroad train rolls through an ocean of Garden image of the plains. Virtually no grain. Pleasant the music of the rippling words unfavorable to the quality of the plains waves as the west wind sweeps over the came from the papers in Chicago, Omaha, St. expanse. There has been no failure of crops Louis, , and Denver during the from , excessive rains, blight, mil­ same year. Similarly, references to a high dew, rust, or other influence of climatology agricultural potential for the plains outweighed .... the fields are smiling with ,41 pessimistic appraisals by nearly a 4-to-1 margin in the descriptive geographical literature, re­ The last-ditch fight against this Garden of gardless of location of publication or distribu­ Eden conception was carried on in some of the tion. The strength of the Garden concept, more independent newspapers of the East and particularly in the areas adjacent to the Great of the larger western cities as a handful of Plains, is evidenced by the large numbers of pessimists (some of whom may have had migrants that moved onto the plains in the money invested in the livestock industry) 1880s; the opinion of the critics that "the fought a rear-guard action against the publi­ American farmer will not take up residence cists. Some detractors called the highly favor­ here for a long time to come" was proved false. able reports of the railroad propagandists The structure of the continuum of opinion had "pure myth," noting that the entire area of the obviously undergone considerable change Great Plains beyond the 100th meridian since 1860: now the elite of the northeastern suffered from a lack of water and was unfit for urban areas, as well as the folk elements of the cultivation except in a few detached places. rural sections of the entire country, tended to "The comparative worthlessness of this great accept the Garden images of the plains. For a tract of land," wrote one critic, "is owing to time, there was agreement on the land quality the insufficient fall of . From this general of the Great Plains that rivaled the unanimity statement is to be excepted only the very of Mr. Jefferson's Garden. But the consensus limited valleys that can be irrigated and the was short-lived. beneficial effects of an occasional wet season."42 At the same time that this apparent To discover who was right-the railroads or universality of opinion began to emerge in the their critics-many eastern papers sent field published literature, around 1880, the Garden correspondents onto the plains to get the story image seemed to be losing ground among firsthand. Typical of their reactions was this pioneers in the vanguard of settlement, as report: evidenced in their folk literature, correspon­ dence, diaries, and journals. Always before, Grass, water and timber of several those at the leading edge of the population varieties are found in abundance, and all of advance had been the most willing to believe excellent quality; small fruits abound; game in the existence of a Garden further west. But is plentiful. The valleys are well adapted for with the move onto the plains in the 1870s, the cattle raising or for agricultural purposes, realities of an uncertain environment began to while the scenery is lovely beyond descrip­ temper enthusiasm for the Garden of the tion. The flora is the most varied and World, at least among the plains residents 216 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985 themselves. While it is true that many of the Second to comments on weather during the newspapers in the small that began to seventies were descriptions of the grasshopper spring up in , western Nebraska invasions that wiped out crops in several and Kansas, and eastern Colorado, , promising years. "Looking at the empty sky and continued to offer booming above me," wrote one plains farmer, "feeling statements about the value of their territories, the rush of the dry earth beneath my feet, many others began to sound a note of disillu­ seeing the dust and decay, I saw how much I sionment. had dared and how little, how pitifully little, I had won." Even more telling is the refrain of a June 10, 1880. Unless the yield this fall folk song that was popular enough in the of moss agates and prickly pears should be seventies to circulate in at least two dozen unusually large, the agricultural export will different versions, with only the name of the be very far below preceding years and there changing: may be actual suffering.... I do not wish to discourage those who might wish to come Then come to Ford County, there's a home to this place for the purpose of engaging in for you all, agriculture, but frankly I will state that it Where wind never ceases, and the rain has its drawbacks. The climate is erratic, never falls, eccentric, and peculiar. . . . Aside from Where the sun never sinks but always these little drawbacks and the fact that remains, nothing grows without except 'Til it cooks you all up on your government white oak clothespins and promissory notes claims. drawing two per cent interest per month, the prospects for the agricultural future is Hurrah for Ford County, where gratifying in the extreme.44 arise, Where the wind's never cinched and the fall The words of the folk themselves provide never dies. an even more dramatic picture of the harsh Then come join its corps and tell of its fame, realities of plains agriculture in the seventies.45 All you poor hungry men that stuck on a The only consistent feature of the plains claim. environment is its inconsistency, and the plains dwellers quickly discovered the 0' it's here I am and here I will stay, relationship between that inconsistency and My money's all gone and I can't get away. their agricultural hopes. Rain is always prom­ There is nothing that makes a man more ised and seldom present; both heat and cold hard and profane, are extreme, and shifts from one to the other Than a'starvin' to death on a government can (and do) take place within a few hours; claim.46 blizzards roar across the plains bearing a freight load of snow that can bury farms and Throughout the seventies, while agricultural farmers alike; and always the twister, evoking experts, railroad promoters, and government terror in those who had seen one before and officials and politicians continued to wax those who had not. There is not much small enthusiastic over the plains prospect, the weather on the plains, and most of the experiences of the new plainsmen modified residents' commentary on the weather was their views of the region. Although the plains outsized as well; references in the folk litera­ were not exactly a Great American Desert, ture to "unusual" weather (meaning different they could hardly be considered the Garden of from the more humid lands to the east) the World. outstrip other references by almost 2-to-l. The attitudes of plainsmen toward their THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 217 environment have always been a blend of the environment. With the curious blend of optimism and pessimism-just as the environ­ hope and despair that was, by now, character­ ment itself swings from years of too much istic of the plains mentality, the editors of water to years of too little. During the 1880s, plains newspapers looked back to the earlier the folk literature again tended to be hopeful, times and remembered the parched days of the speaking of bumper crops and of independence seventies. Drought years had come and gone from the eastern establishment and the bank­ before; seasons of plenty were sure to return. ers. The eighties were free of the and Most of what these writers offered their readers grasshopper invasions of the seventies, and the was hope. The Garden-Desert continuum was blizzards that did occur were much more still a feature of American thought; but it damaging to the cattlemen than to the farm­ differed from earlier versions in that the swing ers, who by that time represented the over­ of opinion on the quality of the plains was now whelming majority of Great Plains population. taking place among the occupiers of the The press-both eastern and western-contin­ grassland environment. No longer did the ued to boom the agricultural potential of what continuum represent differences between elite were now being called, almost universally, the eastern attitudes and the views of a western "prairies"-a term hitherto reserved for the rural folk population. In the land of environ­ more humid grasslands of the Mississippi and mental extremes that is the Great Plains, Ohio valleys. Propagandists began to speak of extremes of opinion began to abound-de­ the "conquest" of the Great Plains by farmers. pending upon the character of the plains The plainsmen themselves were generally more environment at the time. optimistic as well. Farm failure was still a Since the last years of the nineteenth consistent feature of plains life, and disillusion­ century, this cycle of opinion has replaced the ment gripped many who had come to the continuum that existed throughout the 1800s. plains hoping for a piece of the Garden; but for Plainsmen have alternately been attracted to many, the "museum of wonder and value" that and repulsed by their environment, seeing it had been promised was becoming reality in the now as Garden, now as Desert. Still, in the bumper years of the eighties. total range of attitudes toward the plains, the This optimism, like the pessimism of the Garden image has dominated. The amount of late seventies, was short-lived. In the nineties, land used for agricultural purposes on the desolate and parched years followed the abun­ plains has increased fourfold since 1900. dance of the previous decade. Once again the Perhaps the central and most important variable environment of the plains asserted fact we can learn from an examination of the itself and launched a new campaign of drought prevalent attitudes toward the plains in the against the agricultural invaders. Nearly half of nineteenth century is that these views have the population that had moved onto the plains always been subjective; the geography of hope in the 1880s moved out again in the ." As has always been more important than the both rural and urban populations fell, talk of geography of reality. Some would claim that the great agricultural bonanza died upon the there is something about the plains environ­ lips of the enthusiasts. Eastern newspapers in ment itself that engenders this subjectivity. As 1895 carried many tales of disasters on the both a native plainsman and a student of plains; references to the Garden of the World environmental attitudes, I would be foolish to were few and far between and usually tongue­ dismiss that possibility out of hand. Listen to in-cheek. the words of Nebraska writer Wright Morris: A survey of the small-town newspapers that still remained on the plains themselves There is nothing much to see, but indicates that the farmers were fighting for perhaps that is why one goes on looking.... their very existence against the uncertainties of The gaze turns inward and the Plains, 218 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985

both dry and wet, is a fact that recedes, like the Garden-Desert idea may be found in Verdell everything else, into fiction. . . . In this Frederick Borth, "Geographical Epistemology: The landscape the tongue is dry but the mind is Growth and Limits of Geographical Inquiry" Ph.D. wet. A scud of cloud waters the imagina­ diss., University of , 1978). tion, fictions spring up. Where there is 5. For an expansion of this line of reasoning, see the works of John Kirtland Wright, particularly almost nothing to see, there man sees the Human Nature in Geography (Cambridge, Mass.: most. Press, 1966); see also David Lowenthal and MartynJ. Bowden, eds., Geographies NOTES of the Mind: Essays in Honor of John Kirtland Wright (New York: , 1976). This paper was delivered as the keynote address 6. William H. Goetzmann, Exploration and Em­ at the Fourth Wyoming American Studies Confer­ pire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of ence, at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, the American West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, October 1983. 1966), p. xi. 1. The literature on the Great American Desert 7. I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to Concept and its role in American history is those historical geographers of the Clark University extensive. Some of the most detailed accounts may school of historical geography-Bradley be found in: Ralph C. Morris, '.'The Notion of a Baltensperger, Lawson, Richard Jackson, Great American Desert East of the Rockies," and above all, our mentor, Martyn Bowden-whose MississiPPi Valley Historical Review 13 (1926): research on nineteenth-century images of the 190-200; Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains American West in general and the Great Plains in (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1931), pp. 152-60; Henry particular has played a cardinal role in the devel­ Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West in opment of the ideas and in the supplying of data for Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard this paper. I have relied on Baltensperger's data for University Press, 1950), pp. 174-83; R. W. Dillon, settlers' views of the plains in the latter third of the "Stephen Long's Great American Desert," Proceed­ nineteenth century, on Lawson for diary materials ings of the American Philosophical Society 111 (1967): from the forty-niner migrations, on Jackson for 93-108; T. L. Alford, "The West as a Desert in diary material relevant to the Mormon migrations American Thought Prior to Long's 1819-1820 before the Civil War, and on Bowden for his Expedition," Journal of the West 8 (1969): 515-25; G. content analysis of school geographies, textbooks, Malcolm Lewis, "Early American Exploration and and atlases between 1800 and 1882, of newspaper the Cis-Rocky Mountain Desert, 1803-1823," editorials from 1849 to 1859, and of letters and Great Plains JournalS (1965): 1-11; G. Malcolm manuscript diaries of 1843 to 1854. Relevant works Lewis, "Regional Ideas and Reality in the Cis-­ by these scholars are cited in subsequent notes. Rocky Mountain West," Transactions and Papers of 8. See John L. Allen, Passage through the Garden the Institute of British Geographers 38, old series (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), chap. 1; (1966): 135-50; and W. Eugene Hollon, The Great also Abraham P. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark: American Desert: Then and Now (New York: Oxford Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri, University Press, 1966). For an excellent historiogra­ 1785-1804 (St. Louis: St. Louis Historical Docu­ phical treatment of the idea of the Great American ments Foundation, 1952). Desert, see Martyn J. Bowden, "The Great Ameri­ 9. See Alford, "West as Desert"; and Borth, can Desert in the American Mind," in Geographies "Geographical Epistemology," pp. 112-27. of the Mind, ed. D. Lowenthal and M. Bowden, 10. See John L. Allen, "Geographical Knowl­ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. edge and American Images of Louisiana Territory," 119-47. in Western Historical Quarterly 2 (1971): 151-70. 2. Quoted in Smith, Virgin Land, pp. 182-83. 11. John L. Allen, "Geographical Images of the 3. The Garden myth is amply discussed in American Northwest" (Ph.D. diss. Clark Universi­ Smith's Virgin Land, book 3, chaps. 11 to 22; see ty, 1969), chaps. 2-3. also Leo Marx, Machine in the Garden (New York: 12. The literature consulted includes newspa­ Oxford University Press, 1964). pers published in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 4. An excellent account of the epistemology of Baltimore, Alexandria, Savannah, Charleston, THE GARDEN-DESERT CONTINUUM 219

New Orleans, and St. Louis; periodical literature with more than 120 words describing the geography published in 1804; and gazeteers, geographies, and of the western interior. He performed content atlases available in that year. Given the total analysis of these passages to determine the presence number of references to the Great Plains region in or absence of desert or nondesert descriptions. The the literature (well over 200), the stated total of 54 table presenting his content analysis is found on items might seem surprisingly small. In fact, many page 18 of his 1969 paper. more references than that occur in the literature. 21. Malin, Grasslands, p.443. But there are only 54 separate items, many of them 22. See Martyn J. Bowden, "The Great Ameri­ appearing in more than one publication and some can Desert and the American Frontier, 1800-1882: of them occurring literally dozens of times. Popular Images of the Plains," in Anonymous Ameri­ 13. , "An Official Account of cans, ed. Tamara K. Hareven (Englewood, N.J.: Louisiana," in American State Papers: Miscellaneous, Prentice-Hall, 1971), pp. 48-79. Again, Bowden vol. 20, p. 346. This account was also widely cited in used content analysis of school geographies in the periodical literature, appearing a total of 49 deriving "popular images" of the plains. To these, times in 1804 alone. however, he added content analysis of newspapers 14. W. M. P., "A Poem on the Acquisition of published between 1849 and 1859, of letters and Louisiana" (Charleston, S.C., 1804). This poem was manuscript diaries from 1843 to 1854, and of widely reprinted in contemporary newspapers. travelers' accounts, explorers' journals, and land 15. An interesting assessment of the actual survey records (see tables on pages 51, 55, and 63). climate of the Great Plains during various periods of Like his earlier work cited above, Bowden's 1971 the first half of the nineteenth century, in relation essay has provided some of the content analysis data to the recorded observations of explorers, may be utilized here. found in Merlin P. Lawson, The Climate of the Great 23. The lone exception was a work published in American Desert (Lincoln: University of Nebraska French in New Orleans, which was a reprint of a Press, 1974); see pp. 33-54. much earlier account by a French traveler of the late 16. The "official" account of the Long expedi­ eighteenth century. tion was compiled by one of Long's party, Dr. 24. Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Spence, eds., Edwin James, and published as An account of an Expeditions of John Charles Fremont (Urbana: Univer­ expedition . . . to the Rocky Mountains. . . .A reprint sity of Illinois Press, 1970), vol. 1. This is a edition is in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early magnificently edited and annotated version of the Western Travels (: Arthur H. Clark, 1905), original government reports of Fremont's 1842 and vols. 14-17. Included in the official account is 1843-44 expeditions, along with extensive corre­ Long's own "General Description of the Country spondence bearing upon his travels. Traversed by the Exploring Expedition," in which 25. John L. Allen, "The New England Reaction the concept of the Great American Desert is given to Lewis and Clark: Hall Jackson Kelley and the extensive treatment. Propagandists" (Paper presented to the New Eng­ 17. Cf. Alford, "West as Desert," pp. 515-20. land-St. Lawrence Valley regional division of the 18. James, Account, vol. 16, pp. 173-74. Association of American Geographers, Worcester, 19. National Intelligencer (Alexandria, Virginia), Mass., November 1968). 11 October 1825. 26. See Hall Jackson Kelley, Geographical Sketch 20. This notion was suggested as early as 1952 of Oregon, 20th Cong., 1st sess., 1828, Doc. 139, n.p. by James C. Malin in The Grasslands of North 27. Cited in Clark Spence, ed., The American America (Lawrence, Kans.: Privately printed, 1952). West: A Source Book (New York: W. W. Norton, But the seminal study is a paper by Martyn J. 1966), p. 102. Bowden, "The Perception of the Western Interior of 28. For a further explication of this theme, see the United States, 1800-1870," Proceedings of the Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision, 1846 (Bos­ Association of American Geographers 1 (1969): 16-21. ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1942). On the premise that most of the scholars writing 29. An excellent recent study of the great about the Great American Desert have relied upon migrations is John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: the presence of desert references in school geograph­ The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi ies, textbooks, and atlases, Bowden utilized these West, 1840-60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, source materials in his study, considering those texts 1979). 220 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1985

30. See Richard Jackson, "Vision versus Reality: extracting from the scientific accounts data that The Mormon Perception of the Environment, might bolster their beliefs. See John L. Allen, 1840-1865" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1971.) "Working the West: Public Land Policy, Explora­ Also see Jackson's "Mormon Perception and Set­ tion, and the Pre-academic Evolution of American tlement," Annals of the Association of American Geography," in The Origin of American Academic Geographers 68 (1978): 317-34, and "The Overland Geography, ed. Brian Blouet (Hamden, Conn.: Journey to Zion," in The Mormon Role in the Shoestring Press, 1981), pp. 57-68. Settlement of the West, ed. Richard H. Jackson 39. See Emmons, Garden in the Grasslands; and (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, Edgar 1. Stewart, collector and editor, Penny-an-Acre 1978), pp. 1-27. The latter study presents a partic­ Empire in the West (Norman: University of Oklaho­ ularly useful summary of commentary on the Great ma Press, 1968). Plains in the diaries and journals of Mormon 40. Cf. L. P. Brockett, Our Western Empire: or, migrants. The New West Beyond the MississiPPi (Chicago, 31. See Lawson, Climate of the Great American 1882); and C. W. Dana, The Great West; or, The Desert, pp. 55-77. Garden of the World (Boston, 1861). 32. Bowden, "Great American Desert," p. 63. 41. Cited in John Conron, ed., The American 33. Boston Gazette, 7 August 1860, p. 1. Landscape (New York: Oxford University Press, 34. Rufus B. Sage, Scenes in the Rocky Mountains 1973), p. 377. (originally published in 1846; Boston: Wentworth, 42. Cited in Stewart, Penny-an-Acre Empire, p. 1858), pp. 76-77. 184. 35. Franklin Langworthy, Scenery of the Plains, 43. Ibid., p. 115. In "The Emergence of 'Middle Mountains, and Mines ( Ogdensburgh, N.Y.: J. C. West' as an American Regional Label," Annals of the Sprague, 1855), p. 49. Association of American Geographers 74 (1984): 36. G. Malcolm Lewis, "William Gilpin and the 209-20, James R. Shortridge suggests that the Concept of the Great Plains Region," Annals of the pastoral image presented in this description had Association of American Geographers 56 (1966): 33-51, become, by the last third of the nineteenth century, gives an excellent account of the origin and one of the predominant themes associated with the application of the theory of the isothermal zodiac. Kansas-Nebraska area, certainly a "core area" of See also David Emmons, Garden in the Grasslands: the Great Plains. Boomer Literature of the Central Great Plains (Lin­ 44. Bill Nye, "Wyoming Farms, Etc., Etc." in coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), pp. 11 Bill Nye's Western Humor, ed. T. A. Larson (lin­ and 37. coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968), pp. 37. See Unruh, The Plains Across, p. 400. 26-27. 38. An incisive and detailed account of the 45. Bradley J. Baltensperger, "Plains Promoters relationship between environmental attitudes and and Folk: Pre-migration and Post-settlement governmental land policy is Walter M. Kollmorgen, Images of the Central Great Plains" (Ph.D. diss., "The Woodsman's Assaults on the Domain of the Clark University, 1974). Cattleman," Annals of the Association of American 46. The author learned this version in 1963 Geographers 59 (1969): 215-39. By this time, of from an old U.S. Forest Service employee whose course, there was a considerable body of scientific father had homesteaded in Kansas in 1873. knowledge about the plains, deriving from govern­ 47. U.S. Census data, 1890 and 1900; see also ment exploration from the period of the Pacific Robert G. Athearn, High Country Empire (Lincoln: Railroad surveys to the more "pure" scientific University of Nebraska Press, 1960). expeditions of people like John Wesley Powell. 48. Wright Morris, "Our Endless Plains," origi­ While this information was more accurate than nally published in Holiday magazine in 1952; much that had gone before, it did little to alter the reprinted in The Curtis-Doubleday World Atlas nature of American images until late in the nine­ (Garden City, N.Y.: Curtis-Doubleday, 1962), pp. teenth century-and then the alteration was selec­ 217-23. tive, with both Garden and Desert proponents