Charles L. Wood Agricultural History Lecture Series

The Charles L. Wood Agricultural History Lecture Series

Texas and the Age of Pluviculture Clark C. Spence

UNIV ARCH GB 841 .I5 1990 No. I The International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies Texas Tech University Lubbock, Texas

Publication Number 90-1 The Charles L. Wood Agricultural History Lecture Series

Texas and the Age of Pluviculture

Clark C. Spence Professor of History University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Series Editor, David J. Murrah Manuscript editing by Sharon L. Kohout

International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies Lubbock, Texas Other Lectures in the Series

Gilbert C. Fite, "Recent Trends in United States Agricultural History"

Joe B. Frantz, "Little Water, Less Wood"

Third in the Series

Printed in the United States of America at PrinTech. An Associate of the International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies at Texas Tech, Chuck Wood had begun to research the ranching industry in West Texas at the time of his death. Chuck's enthusiasm for"his subject, his dedication to good teaching and careful scholarship, and his kind and gentle manner touched students and colleagues alike. Both agricultural history and Texas Tech are richer for the work of Charles L. Wood. For the third annual lecture in the Charles L. Wood Agricultural History Lecture Series, we were pleased to present "Texas and the Age of Pluviculture" by Clark C. Spence, Professor of History at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, where he teaches and researches the American West, with an emphasis on the region's mining and agricultural history. A native of Montana who grew up on a ranch, he earned degrees at the University of Colo rado and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. One of the most productive scholars in his field, Professor Spence has written numerous books, among them God Charles L. Wood Speed the Plow: The Coming ofSteam Culti vation to Great Britain (1960), Mining 1937-1981 Engineers and the American West: The Lace Boot Brigade, 1849-1933 (1970), Montana: A Bicentennial History (1978), and The Salva Charles L. Wood was a son of the Great Plains tion Army Farm Colonies (1985). He has also and its agricultural heritage. Born into a farm contributed more than thirty-five articles on family in Hemingsford, Nebraska, Chuck subjects ranging from gold dredges to livery Wood was educated at St. Benedict's College stables. in Atchinson, Kansas, and at the University of Professor Spence has acquired a long list of Kansas, where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. honors in recognition of his scholarly achieve degrees in American history under the tutelage ments. He received the A. J. Beveridge of Professors George L. Anderson and John G. Honorable Mention Award from the American Clark. Between 1963 and 1970 and again from Historical Association, the Agricultural 1974 to 1976, he served on the faculty of History Society Book Award, and the Award Hayden High School in Topeka. Chuck joined of Merit from the American Association of the history faculty at Texas Tech University in State and Local History. He has held 1976, where he taught agricultural history until Fulbright, Guggenhiem, and Ford Faculty Fel his sudden death at the age of 44 in 1981. lowships. In 1969-70, he served as president Although his stay with us was brief, Chuck of the Western History Association, and he communicated his deep affection for the land has held memberships on the editorial boards and people of the Plains and energetically of six scholarly journals. pursued his research on cattle ranching in the Drawing upon a larger study of pluviculture West. His articles on the range and cattle before the Second World War, published by industry appeared in the Kansas Historical the University of Nebraska Press in 1980, Quarterly and the Journal of the West, and in Clark Spence, in the Wood Lecture, describes 1980 his monograph The Kansas Beef Industry the persistent and sometimes desperate was published by the Regents Press of Kansas. attempts to coax rainfall from the Texas skies.

iii Consistent with much of his historical writing, he retains a keen sense of the human elements that characterized rainmakers, whether charla tans or men of science. So too, he succeeds in telling the story of both ordinary people in dire need of "rain doctors" and the advances made in meteorology and weather modifica tion that encouraged new hope in the farming community. Particularly notable is the wide and rich variety of sources that were used to reveal this side of agricultural history in the Southwest.

The following individuals served on the 1985-86 Wood Lecture Series Committee: Joe King, History (Chair); Marvin Cepica, Agricultural Sciences; Kristine Fredericksson, Museum; David Murrah, Southwest Collec tion; Cynthia Sturgis, History; and Idris Traylor, Jr., International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies.

The lecture was sponsored by:

Texas Tech University College of Agricultural Sciences College of Arts and Sciences Department of History International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies Southwest Collection The Museum Ranching Heritage Association West Texas Museum Association

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Carolyn Rude, Associate Professor of English, and her students, Ken Goach, Janet Greathouse, and Donna Pritchett, in the production of this publication.

Joseph E. King Department of History

IV TEXAS AND THE AGE OF PLUVICULTURE

CLARK C. SPENCE

Like the American West in general, Texas Walter Prescott Webb made the same point in is a land of contrasts---of coastal plains, pine 1957 and was hooted down. Modem scholars forests, honest-to-goodness deserts, high see a cyclical drought pattern, with acute plains, and substantial mountains. Like the aridity every other decade, occurring from the West in general, it shares a common prob 1890s on down to the era of the black blizzards, lem-a frequent lack of moisture west of the the dirty thirties, again in the filthy fifties, and ninety-eighth meridian, with annual rainfall yet again in the sorry seventies.2 averaging around twenty inches on its high If the dry years of the 1890s slowed the pace plains and half that in West Texas. 1 For its of settlement, they speeded the process of settlers, water has been its most precious adaptation to the environment-the search for commodity, and in time of drought, desperate drought-resistant crops and more sophisticated farm or ranch people have grasped at any dry farming methods, the limited expansion of straws that have represented even a faint ray irrigation, and, in moments of desperation, of hope. And in those circumstances, efforts to produce artificial rain. The idea of rainmaking practitioners unerringly surfaced rain-making, which is as old as antiquity, was like cats at the back door of a fish market. now wrapped in semi-respectability and resur By the middle of the 1880s cattlemen were rected to meet a new challenge. "Progress" pushing farther onto the Texas high plains, was a national catchword, and even country building windmills to pump from wells, and farmers were aware of what science and retaining rainwater in sntall "tanks" held by technology had already done for agriculture. earthen dams. Settling first in the Panhandle, Might they not also solve the moisture prob east of the High Plains proper, sodbusters too lem? Unfortunately, many confused science began to edge out on the plains, attracted by with pseudo-science, or even with downright more liberal land laws and the coming of rail chicanery. This is what my remarks are about. roads, spawning a crop ~f new towns like It was the President of Stanford University Amarillo, Plainview, and Lubbock. But the who coined the word "pluviculture" to describe 1890s brought devastating drought to West the growing and marketing of rainmaking Texas, frightening cattlemen and farmers schemes-"a never failing drought crop, alike. Eighteen ninety-four was the worst according to the Weather Bureau."3 Pluvicul year on record, not only in Texas but through ture peaked during the 1890s crisis, then out the Great Plains. Eighteen ninety-four proceeded at a more leisurely pace, rising and was the year Texans, for the first time, saw falling with years of high and low humidity for fish swimming up the Canadian River, another half century before giving way to a leaving a trail of dust behind. An old-timer Brave New World of weather modification, later recalled: "Remember Noah and the Ark, eventually with the weight of both science and when it rained forty days and forty nights? government behind it. In the Age of Pluvicul Well, we got half an inch that summer." ture, the wing of the army of cloudbusters con But settlers pushing out in good years cerned with legitimately wringing moisture would not discard the idea that "rain follows from the sky was decidedly smaller than the the plow." On the High Plains, as elsewhere, one more concerned with extracting dollars they were convinced that turning the soil, from the pockets of gullible and discouraged planting trees and crops, and building farmers who watched their com curl up and railroads and towns brought increased rainfall. tum brown from lack of water. They would not believe that the Great Plains The lunatic fringe of American rainmakers in general was an area of marginal rainfall, has always demonstrated wondrous imagina any more than Texans would acquiesce when tion. These people have proposed the use of secret rays, the stewing of moisture-producing the Inter-State Artificial Rain Company, herbal concoctions, and the focusing of huge reported in 1891 that he had found a Texas magnifying glasses to hasten evaporation backer. "If he wants the whole Pan Handle of from streams. They have suggested moving Texas watered we can accommodate him." warm air upward to cooler levels with deflecting planes or decapitating the coast And I tell you, Marve," [he range to allow moist air to flow eastward onto wrote a friend.] "We have the Great Basin. One fantastic machine of the got the world by the horns 1930s would create rain for all North America with a down hill pull and can and serve as a radio receiver to boot. all wear diamonds pretty But in the field of practice, the most soon. We can water all common approaches were the release of rain creation and have some to inducing chemicals, generally from the spare.7 ground; the "boom-boom" technique, based on the theory that explosions could somehow Inter-State Company specialists went to jar rain loose in the atmosphere; and the "salt work at Temple in a rented shanty on the edge shaker" method of seeding clouds with of town, carefully shut inside away from substances varying from carbon bisulfide to prying eyes. Observers saw only "suggestive electrified sand. blazes of purple and blue" issuing at night The chemical "smell-makers" were always through a small pipe vented from the roof, and around. Throughout the arid West, a handful got a whiff of five chemical compounds "ad of sharp con men built up faithful followings ministered as medicine to the atmosphere" by as they mixed their mysterious formulas a secret apparatus. Judging their labors a com often brews that were hard on the olfactory plete success, the crew was "jubilant" and nerves. Local farmers might think "a Lim reportedly were about to sell their process for berger cheese factory has broken loose," a $50,000, although local Baptists thought newsman wrote in 1905. "These gases smell prayer more effective. 8 so bad that it rains in self defense.'"' These firms were soon eclipsed by Clayton For example, Frank Melbourne parlayed Jewell, official rain collector for the Rock his secret mixture and a small machine "no Island Railroad Company, who, with chemi larger than a dinner pail" into a fleeting cals and freight cars as a mobile base of national reputation before such headlines as operations, moved up and down the line, "Melbourne Makes Rain" and "The Rain plying his arts at whistle stops across the Doctor Did It" gave way to charges of plains, inspiring home-grown poets and quackery and left the rainmaker a suicide in a claiming sixty-six triumphs before the Rock shabby Denver hotel. In 1891, while in his Island deserted him. prime, Melbourne claimed to have "two liberal offers" from the Lone Star State, where Insert your patent cork he also stopped to negotiate later when screw in the bottle retuminf from cloud milking efforts in of the sky, Sonora. And pull like blazes, won't In Kansas, at about the same time, shrewd you, till the wet, small-town operators capitalized on wet waters fly? Melbourne's "triumphs" to form three It has been two weeks, old commercial rainmaking companies which fellow, since a were active as far afield as California and rain has come this Mexico, much to the joy of punsters and way, cartoonists. "Let me take your order, sir, for And the com is turning the Aquarius Artificial Rain-Making Com yellow and the pany," the drummer tells a farmer. "Our rain droufht in on the is superior to anything in the market, and we hay. give a silk umbrella and a pair of overshoes with every shower!''6 The Rock Island Railroad proposed an Claiming success in Oklahoma, the official test with Jewell in the Pecos Valley in president of one of the Kansas corporations, 1892 and asked the U.S. Weather Bureau to

2 send meteorologists to observe, but officials constantly followed the blasting of railroad in the head office abandoned the demonstra construction crews? In War and the Weather, tions before they commenced. Trials contem a little book published in 1872 and reprinted plated by the Union Pacific in the same area 20 years later, Chicago engineer Edward 10 were also quickly dropped. Powers drew these ideas together and put on The most famous of the "smell-makers" paper what everybody already knew.1 was the former California sewing machine One of Powers' staunch supporters was salesman, Charles Hatfield, who amazed Daniel Ruggles, honored veteran of the western farmers and tormented professional campaigns in Mexico and the Confederacy, weather experts for over a quarter of a who was also the owner of some 300,000 century. His approach was "mainly chemical acres along the Rio Bravo and holder of a affinity with the atmosphere," which meant patent on rainmaking by exploding balloons mixing and aging certain chemicals and in the air. For years, Ruggles had lobbied for placing them to evaporate in large flat pans on congressional funding to test his invention. top of wooden frame towers. He modestly According to the Austin Statesman, in April acknowledged an astounding number of of 1879, he had investigated irrigation successes, including the record deluge in 1916 carefully but discarded it as too costly in which washed out a California dam and left favor of bombarding the sky, dragging down death and destruction in its wake. 11 the rain "as Franklin drew the lightning from This "first lieutenant to Jupiter Pluvius the heavens." Impressed with Ruggles, the himself," as the San Antonio Express called editor was both favorable and optimistic. him, ranged as far north as the Yukon and as "We have Jove's chosen successor on earth, far south as the Honduran banana fields. In even in this modest capital," he said. " ... We Italy, according to the press, "the young may yet learn to ride the storm and guide the California cloud engineer" was "a bigger hero tempests and milk the juicy atmosphere, even then Mussolini," although in fact he never as Jove gathered clouds when the blind old traveled to Europe. Of 504 rainmaking bard sang in a tropical sea three thousand attempts in his career, his brother wrote years ago."15 expansively in 1969, Hatfield had a perfect Eventually Ruggle's ideas would be record: "He did not have ONE failure!" officially tried, thanks mainly to Charles B. Editors called him "The Man the Rain Farwell, senator from Illinois, a concussionist Minds," the "outstanding water magician of disciple who as early as 1874 had sought Southern California." Serious writers saw federal money to prove Edward Powers' him as a popular folk-hero, with a kind of my theories. Farwell, too, had Texas interests. thology about him that rivaled Paul Bunyan With his brother John V. and other Illinois and Pecos Bill.12 associates, he had underwritten the building Hatfield was invited to Texas in 1912 by of the Texas stat~ house in exchange for the the Midland Chamber of Commerce and by 3,000,000-acre Capitol Tract that became the farmers and ranchers in the San Angelo area. XIT Ranch along the west side of the Pan Near Carlsbad and Water Valley, he built handle.16 three twenty-five-foot towers and unleashed In 1890 it was Farwell who, almost single his magic chemicals in June and July, with handedly, carried through Congress an appro one of these exhibitions viewed by some priation of $9,000 for "experiments in the 3,000 curious onlookers. By his brother's production of rainfall" under the auspices of account, copious rains gushed forth to the Secretary of Agriculture Jeremiah Rusk. great benefit of cotton and other crops, Rusk farmed out the project to a special agent, although their local backers were much less Robert St. George Dyrenforth, a well impressed.13 educated, if eccentric, Washington patent If the smell-makers had a devoted follow attorney who wanted to prove, not merely 17 ing, it was the concussionist school that made test, the concussionist theory. the greatest impact. Every Civil War veteran After a few preliminary skirmishes near the could personally attest that gunfire inevitably nation's capital, the colorful Dyrenforth began brought down rain. It was common knowl tests in August 1891 on the ranch near edge that July 4th was always exceptionally Midland of wealthy Chicago meat packer, moist. And was it not a fact that showers Nelson Morris. Suitably clad in·cavalry

3 boots and pith helmet, the "General" deployed If most scientists were skeptical, at times his forces for battle: 60 makeshift guns even abusive, so was a heavy segment of the adapted from wagon axle boxes and lengths press who scoffed at "these ridiculous experi of well tubing; explosives called "rackarock" ments." In fact, said the Nation, if the tamped in prairie dog holes; a series of large Secretary of the Navy were to "send out the bomb-carrying kites; balloons filled with an North Atlantic Squadron to melt the icebergs explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, to on the Banks by bombarding the Gulf Stream be detonated aloft. 18 Throughout the month, off New York, his act would not be a whit the warfare continued intermittently, with more absurd."22 Accounts of the Chicago · newspapers across the country receiving Farm Implement News and the Dallas Farm biased accounts of success. "They made and Ranch, whose reporters had covered the rain," said the Rocky Mountain News flatly; Midland trials, were much at variance with the the Washington Post called it "a fitting publicity statements of the expedition itself. victory" for the "sky stormers." "More than The self-styled rainmakers simply took credit one congressman will go to Washington this for moisture due to natural causes, they winter with a rain-making bill in his pocket," charged. A scornful cartoon in the Farm reported the New York Sun. Meanwhile, Implement News showed Dyrenforth in his aspiring bards hammered out rustic verse to cork helmet, rallying his men: "Hurry up the fit the occasion: inflation, touch off the bombs, send up the kites, let go the rackarock; here's a telegram I am Cloud-compelling Dyrenforth, a announcing a storm. If we don't hu~ , it will mighty able wight; be on us before we raise our racket. "2 I can call the clouds together with a Nevertheless, despite a lack of enthusiasm load of dynamite; by the Secretary of Agriculture and by Texas I can dally with the cyclone, I can Representative Constantine Kilgore of Rush monkey with the gale. County, who called the experiment "a dead I can fertilize the prairie where failure" and suggested prayer meetings another man must fail. ... 19 instead, Congress appropriated another $10,000 for more trials in 1892.24 This time, While Dyrenforth returned to Washington, Dyrenforth established Camp Farwell, a few the rainmakers mobilized in El Paso under a miles north of San Antonio, and several large subordinate, with Fort Bliss soldiers augment landholders, including Charles Farwell, ing the balloons with aerial bombs shot from contributed an additional $8,000.25 In a mortars. With little success, the crew now festive atmosphere, visitors from nearby Fort regrouped near Corpus Christi, where Robert Sam Houston were welcomed with light J. Kleberg of the King Ranch and a few others Thanksgiving Day firing of new types of subsidized further tests to the tune of several explosives, followed the next day by full-scale thousand dollars. With only limited firing, bombardment. According to the spokesman wet weather ensued and was promptly for the group, the firing brought down at least claimed. The group then advanced fifty miles a sprinkling, although University of Texas west near San Diego in Duval County, where physicist Alexander Macfarlane, who was hundreds of spectators watched the fireworks there, ridiculed the idea. Governor James and were rewarded with steady rainfall. 20 Hogg visited the camp and Reverend King of Dyrenforth's official report, published by the First Baptist Church in San Antonio Congress early in 1892, was positive and preached a sermon, taking his test from included testimony from aides and onlookers Leviticus and Ezekiel, "there shall be showers alike who were convinced that the cloud of blessing," and viewing the rainmakers as busters had "got a cinch on Old Pluvius," as instruments of divine power.26 one of them put it. "A tax of a few cents an But early December passed with the only acre would cover the expense of operations storms evident those of the now highly extending over the entire dry season," sug sarcastic press, influenced no doubt by the gested an Oberlin professor. "Without a widely circulated criticism of the scientific doubt it will soon be a thing of the past for the community.27 When the Secretary of Agricul Texas cotton-grower to lose two-thirds of his ture omitted money for experiments from the crop for lack of rain at the wrong time."21 1893 budget, there was a general round of

4 applause from the editors, who damned the Company set out to break the drought at "far-reaching and iridescent failure" Thurber, it was by a day-long detonation of already produced at public expense. In a explosives on a hill outside town, resulting biting piece entitled "Fakes and Fakirs," in much noise and a few drops of rain.31 the San Antonio Evening Star, which This same dry spell also prompted the heretofore had adopted a wait-and-see well-publicized efforts of Charles W. Post, attitude, called it a "crack-brained dream" Michigan cereal king, who shot off and recommended that the government's thousands of dollars worth of explosives as "rainfaking department" head for greener part of nearly two dozen spectacular "rain pastures. The editor of the San Antonio battles," a few of which were in Battle Daily Express also went after the rain Creek, but most on his 200,000-acre colony ·general: near Post City, southeast of Lubbock. An ardent champion of concussionism, He attacked front and rear, by the "Postum" Post, as he was sometimes right and left flank, in the open field called, had already experimented with dry and by Indian ambuscades. He shot farming techniques and such crops as high up and low down, striving to cotton, milo, grain sorghum and Kaffir catch it "between wind and water." com (perhaps even a few acres of Grape He ... tore great holes in the bosom Nuts). He had tried limited irrigation from of Mother Earth, and . . . ripped the wells but found it too expensive. In 1910 circumambient ether to ribbons. he made preliminary rainmaking trials with Great guns belched, shells screeched dynamite attached to kites but was and cracked and enthusiastic thwarted when rain fell just as the tests spectators yelled "fer Jim Hogg an' were about to begin. In the following the Kermishun;" but . . . the sky remained clear as the complexion of spring, he abandoned the kites in favor of a Saxon maid. 28 ground stations spaced regularly one-eighth of a mile apart over a two-mile line along Thus the end came to the government's the Caprock. By the end of the summer, rainmaking experiments in the Southwest. his crews were firing off three thousand The man who had been referred to as the pounds of dynamite per battle, much of it "Texas cloud puncher" and "Rain-Getter donated by Du Pont Powder Company.32 Dyrenforth" was now dubbed "Major Post's confident article, "Making Rain Dryhenceforth" by the wags. Knowledge While the Sun Shines," appeared in able men scoffed; meteorologists in Harper's Weekly early in 1912 and was retrospect saw the affair as "a national copied as far away as London. In it he disgrace," "a most humiliating experi touted the "success" of Dyrenforth, as well ence."79 If Charles Farwell was discour aged, he had not given up. He was still as several successes of his own, one of negotiating with Jewell, the Rock Island which produced rain over 400,000 acres at chemist, and continued to help finance a a cost of a quarter of a cent per acre. scheme to pepper the clouds with carbonic Throughout the summer of 1912, Post's acid. But with faith in his government and "moisture manager," A. L. Marhoff, having read positive newspaper headlines, directed the campaign, rattling the dishes in the average citizen still felt in his bones the Algerita Hotel in town, with mixed that explosions brought down rain. results. According to Marhoff's records, Nothing would change his mind. seven of the thirteen attempts made that Thus when the lingering High Plains year were followed by "an appreciable drought after 1907 prompted desperate amount of rain" and three by "veritable Dawson County farmers to advertise for a cloudbursts." Post's last rain battle-the "Rainmaker of Experience," promisin~ a "good commission" to the right party, 0 it twenty-first--<:ame in August 1913, nine was undoubtedly concussionism that they months before he died by his own hand. had in mind. In the dry, dusty summer of That he was truly committed to rainmaking 1911, when the Texas and Pacific Coal by concussion was indicated by his

5 patience with his many critics and by his disappointed.37 Not until after World War II . expenditure of some fifty thousand dollars of would cloud-seeding come into its own, his own. It was cheaper than irrigation, he despite pleas from believers across the New said.33 Mexico line, who envisioned "a few Flyers The Dust Bowl days of the thirties refo herding the summer clouds and milking them cused attention on artificial rain by bombard even as a few cowboys herd thousands of ment. Remembering that his blasting in the cattle and corral them for use. "38 oil fields was often followed by rain, Ama The coming of the airplane added a new rillo oil well fire-fighter Tex Thornton sought dimension, not only for the cloud-seeders but to milk the clouds at Dalhart in the spring of for the blasters, as well. One of those who at 1935 by firing aerial bombs into the air on least partially bridged the gap between the three different occasions, but he was not nineteenth-century rainmakers and the triumphant. Next he met at the courthouse twentieth-century airborne specialists was where citizens recalled positive results from James A. Boze of Dallas, described by some concussion in earlier years and local farmers as a chemist and by others as an electrician. and ranchers contributed $300 for explosives, In the dry summer of 1934, Boze, even then to be detonated from balloons near Rita labeled a "professional rainmaker," was Blanca Lake, a few miles south of town. At experimenting with "moisture bombs," as he the appointed time, several hundred onlook- . called them, at least one of which he shot into ers, including reporters and newsreel camera the air from a mortar near Waxahachie, men, were frustrated by a severe dust storm, predicting almost immediate rain and getting which prompted Thornton to bury his charges it. A few days later, Boze claimed success in in the sand and set them off-producing even milking "reluctant clouds" of moisture by more dust, but no rain and no cause for firing electrically-timed bombs from an celebration.34 airplane. But one exploded prematurely, About the same time, E. L. Torrance of setting the craft on fire, and several more Waco sent a telegram to President Franklin denotated before Boze could get rid of them. Roosevelt, proposing an "Explosion Day" The pilot made a spectacular blazing landing throughout the United States, at which time in a cotton field, but the critically burned each community would set off explosives and Boze died the next day.39 bring down rain. This suggestion was echoed Interspersed among more conventional by others, one of whom believed that 40,000 efforts were more far-fetched schemes, as Civilian Conservation Corps boys discharging much designed to soak investors as crops. A $20 million worth of ammunition could not Stockdale man promised effective rainmak fail to produce moisture. 35 In keeping with ing- without either explosives or clouds, this, the U.S. Weather Bureau was deluged using a secret device that could provide the with mail in the 1939-42 period, asking if the average farm with pure rainwater daily at an war in Europe was not bringing increased initial cost of about a hundred dollars, and ten precipitation. dollars a year to operate.40 A more specific If Texas farmers were constantly being example is the grandiose invention called the reminded of the concussionists and the "Cyclorain," conceived in the fertile imagina chemical rainmakers, they saw relatively little tion of Ira Nathan Terrill shortly after World of the shakers and dusters. Charles Farwell of War I, though it may have had a predecessor the XIT Ranch was at one point one of the in the 1890s in the form of the "Rainolette" backers of the Chicago inventor, Louis machine of J.M. Mathews of San Antonio. Gathmann, who had patented a "shower Mathew's device was designed to blow a producing process" based on the shooting of vertical column of air upward to condense carbonic acid into the air, but there is no into rain, but apparently the inventor was evidence that the equipment was ever tested unable to finance an eighty horsepower on the ranch. 36 In the early 1920s, reputable engine to run it.41 eastern scientists, under the auspices of the A Brownwood resident, Ira Terrill claimed Army, had conducted experiments of spraying to have been a member of the first Oklahoma clouds from the air with electrified sand. legislature and to have made a fortune Many thought that the key to releasing speculating in Texas oil fields. On paper, the moisture had been found, but they were soon "Cyclorain" itself was a huge tube arrange-

6 ment, 220 feet high, through which large Another employed a "statistician," a man blowers would force warm, moisture-laden air well-versed in racetrack odds, to help plot his at a high rate and velocity into the cooler air moves. Rain was due. If it came, each strata."To sow the rain, To grow the grain," claimed it as his own and collected his he said in a 1918 brochure, making a plea for money. "ten big-hearted, broad-minded men tojoin The concussionists, Dyrenforth or Charles me in the promotion of this invention.' 2 Post, were less rascals than myopic pseudo Terrill sought both private and federal scientists, who used neither meaningless support to "add uncountable wealth to the jargon nor sought to exploit a secret. They world" by building a belt of Cyclorain were zealots, true believers; and their sins machines from the mouth of the Rio Grande were over-optimism and commitment to a · northward and westward to divert moisture widely held theory that had no scientific laden Gulf air and to provide rain over the basis. Even so, the mere fact of sponsorship Great Plains. A Texas Christian University by the Department of Agriculture gave the professor thought the invention "equal[ed] Texas cloud-crackers respectability, and those of wireless telegraphy and aerial favorable headlines only reinforced popular navigation," and Terrill was soon calling for belief in concussion. "150 big-hearted, broad-minded men" to Why should farmers and ranchers play this underwrite his brainchild through the Cyclo game? To begin with, in prolonged drought, rain Trust of Wichita Falls, which offered what could they lose? Except for private 50,000 shares of $10 each. Not only would funds collected by the Dyrenforth group, the Cyclorain make the deserts blossom as a almost all contracts were on a "no rain, no rose, it could also prevent rain, banish heat, pay" basis. Arrangements were made by and halt tornadoes at will. "Get in and win," groups, not individuals, so one man's he urged.43 contribution, if rain came, was not major and On the other hand, the Chief of the U. S. was worth every penny. And who could say Weather Bureau came close to having a stroke that the drought would not have continued, over the publicity. He labeled the Cyclorain a had the rainmaker not plied his art? More "huge joke," a "fake," a "far-fetched fantasy," over, there was often a carnival atmosphere and concurred with the U.S. Post Office, about the business which was attractive to which believed that Terrill's stock sales were rural folks. Hundreds or even thousands at least improper, if not dishonest.44 After the turned out to watch the "rain doctor" at work. postal inspectors began their probe, no more If Weather Bureau people nearly had apo was heard of Terrill and his revolutionary plexy through it all, they consistently sought invention. to soft-pedal rainmaking, to ignore the "rain How do we assess these men, these early fakirs" and their publicity, and to distance "rainmakers"? Were they frauds, fanatics, government as far as possible from it. geniuses? How did they convince people that The Age of Pluviculture set the stage for they could indeed bring down rain? Why did the new post-World War I era of weather rural society tolerate them? modification, ushered in by the breakthrough Clearly, the Melbournes, the Jewells, and of Irving Langmuir and Vincent Schaefer in the Hatfields were charlatans in the best cloud-seeding-first with dry ice and then tradition of American snake oil vendors with with silver iodide. Now not only rainmaking, their gaudy wagons. Shrewd psychologists, but also snow pack augmentation, fog they gambled their time and reputations that dispersal, and hail and hurricane suppression moisture would fall after they began their were involved. The new day of the weather work, for they were not called in until a dry modifier began with exaggerated claims of spell had persisted for some time. Their moisture increase of from fifty to a hundred methods were secret, but they hedged their percent, even by scientists who should have bets. Among Melbourne's mysterious known better, and by swarms of "wildcat" equipment was a barometer, and a well seeders, armed with war surplus AT-6's, a thumbed copy of Hick's popular weather few buckets of dry ice, and a yen to bring almanac with its long-range forecasts. rain. But within a few years, with the support H;atfield studied government weather maps of science and of federal agencies, the ground and records carefully before every venture. rules become clearer. Gone was the "no rain,

7 no pay" approach. Planes, fuel, and chemi cals meant tangible operating costs. Large, experienced professional finns-million dollar businesses- began to replace the wildcats, whose unbridled enthusiasm was curbed by regulatory laws in Texas by the late sixties and in thirty other states by 1980.45 No longer could it be doubted that weather could be modified by seeding; the question now was under what circumstances and how much? Fortunately, the expansion of deep well irrigation in Texas accompanied these changes in atmospheric water maneuvering, for on the arid southern plains, the favorable circumstances of moisture-laden clouds was not always available. As a San Angelo editor put it in 1952:

Milking a cloud, many West Texas ranchmen will tell you, is just like milking a cow. If either one of them is dry, only nature can take the required action for getting them back into 46 production again. .

But under the right conditions, modern cloud-seeding might enhance precipitation as much as five to fifteen percent-no cure-all, but a vast improvement over the Age of Pluviculture.

8 NOTES

1. From the 50 inches along the Sabine, the companies. Scientific American Supple figures average over 40 east of the 96th ment 36 (4 November 1893): 14881. For Meridian, 30-40 between the 96th and the two studies with much information on 98th Meridians, 20-30 between the 98th Melbourne, see Martha B. Caldwell, and the 102nd Meridians, less than 20 in "Some Kansas Rain Makers," Kansas the Trans-Pecos and High Plains, and Historical Quarterly 7 (August 1938): under 10 in the El Paso region. Walter P. 306-24 and Paul Dee Travis, "Myths and Webb, editor-in-chief, The Handbook of Panaceas: A Study of the Attempts to Texas (Austin: Texas State Historical Create Rain Artificially in the Semiarid Society, 1952), 1:432. Regions of Kansas" (M. A. thesis, Wichita State University, 1966). 2. For the concept of "Rain Follows the Plow," see David M. Emmons, Garden in 6. Spence, The Rainmakers, 65-70; Puck 30 the Grasslands: Boomer Literature of the (9 September 1891): 33. Central Great Plains (Lincoln: Univer sity of Nebraska Press, 1971), 128-161 7. Sherman County Farmer, 10 December and Charles R. Kutzleb, "Rain Follows 1891; Goodland News, 22 and 29 the Plow: The History of An Idea" October, and 5 November 1891. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colo rado, 1968). The standard works on the 8. Goodland News, 4 and 11 May 1893; 10 Dust Bowl of the thirties, with informa May 1894; Goodland Republic, 4 August tion on the fifties and seventies, are 1893; Railroad Gazette 26 (21 Septem Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The ber 1894): 652; Engineering News 33 (14 Southern Plains in the 1930s (New York February 1895): 109; Engineering News & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 45 (10 January 1901): 32; New York 1979) and R. Douglas Hurt, The Dust Tribune, 7 April 1895. Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981). 9. Alexander Macfarlane in Scientific American Supplement 36 (4 November 3. David Starr Jordan, "The Art of 1893): 14881; Sherman County Farmer, Pluviculture," Science 62 (24 July 1925): 12 November 1891; Goodland News, 19 81-82; William J. Humphreys, Rain November 1891; Mining and Scientific Making and Other Weather Vagaries Press 64 (13 February 1892): 118. (Baltimore: William and Wilkins Co., 1926), vii. For a general treatment of the l 0. Mark Harrington to Secretary of Agricul Age of Pluviculture, see Clark C. Spence, ture J. Sterling Morton (Washington, 27 The Rainmakers: American "Pluvicul September 1892), copy; W. I. Allen to ture" to World War lI (Lincoln & Harrington (Chicago, 2 October 1892, London: University of Nebraska Press, and 1 September 1893); Harrington to 1980). Allen (Washington, 20 September 1893), copy, Chief of Weather Bureau, Letters 4. Wichita Daily Eagle, 30 July 1899; un Sent Book (19 May - 11 November identified clipping ( 1905), Hatfield 1893), Vol. 3, all in National Archives. Scrapbook 1, Los Angeles Public Library. A. McAllaster to Howard Miller (Omaha, 7 August 1893); Alexander Macfarlane 5. Goodland News, 10 September 1891; to Mark Harrington (n. p., 16 August Goodland Republic, 1 April 1892; Frank 1893), telegram; Howard Miller to Melbourne to Frank Jones (Hermosilla, Alexander McAdie (Lewisburg, Pennsyl 17 March 1892), quoted in Agnes Wright vania, 18 August 1893), all in Weather Spring, "Rainmakers of the 'Nineties," Bureau Correspondence (1893), Box Colorado Magazine 32 (October 1955): 869. 297. At one point, he was supposed to have practiced his arts near Temple, but 11. Thomas W. Patterson, "Hatfield the this was probably one of the Goodland

9 Rainmaker," Journal of San Diego November 1879), Weather Bureau Cor History 16 (Winter 1970): 3-27; Charles respondence (Misc. Series), 1879, file Alma Byers, "The Man the Rain Minds," 2119, Box 351; entries for 15 January Everybody's Magazine 41 (August and 2 March 1880, Congressional 1919): 112; Charles Marvin to editor of Record, 46th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1879-80, Everybody's Magazine (Washington, 3 pp. 362, 1268; Memorial of Daniel August 1919), copy, Weather Bureau Correspondence (1912-24), Box 2454; Ruggles, Asking for an Appropriation to Illustrated London News 160 (5 Febru Be Expended in Developing His System ary 1922): 145; New York Evening Post, of Producing Rainfall, Senate Misc. 18 April 1925; Symon's Monthly Doc. no. 39, 46th Cong., 2nd Sess., Meteorological Magazine 41 (July 1879-80, pp. 7, 12-13, 17-18. 1906): ll5.

16. Congressional Record, 43d Cong., 1st 12. San Antonio Express, 20 July 1924; Fort Sess., 1873-74, p. 1882; Production of Worth Record, 21August1905; Byers, Rain by Artillery-Firing, House Report "The Man the Rain Minds," 112; no. 786, 43d Cong., 1st Sess., 1873-74, unidentified clipping (1905), Hatfield p. 1; J. Evetts Haley, The XJT Ranch of Scrapbook l , Los Angeles Public Texas (Norman: University of Okla Library; The Fresno Bee, 14 February homa Press, 1953), 52, 56-57. 1926; Paul A. Hatfield, "How Charles Mallory Hatfield Filled the Great 17. United States Statutes at Large, 26 Morena Reservoir," The Beacon (1890): 286; American Meteorological (Campo, California) 1 (31 May 1969): 5; Journal 8 (June 1891): 81 ; Bernhard E. Carey McWilliams, Southern California Fernow to Henry L. Penfield (Washing Country (New York: Duell; Sloan & ton, 30 April 1891), copy, Division of Pierce, 1946), 196-97. Forestry Correspondence, Letters Sent, Book G, National Archives. By 13. Unidentified clipping, 14 June 1912, Dyrenforth's own account, he had a Hatfield Scrapbook 1, Los Angeles Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg Public Library; Paul Hatfield Interview, and an M. D. from Columbian Univer 33, 114, University of California at Los sity. He had enlisted in the Union Angeles Library; unidentified, undated armies at the age of sixteen, was twice clipping (stamped 15 April 1958, South wounded in campaigns under McClellan west Collection, Texas Tech University). and Rosecrans, and had been a corre spondent in the Austro-Prussian War. 14. See Edward Powers, The War and the From 1871 to 1885, when he entered Weather, or, the Artificial Production of private law practice, he was connected Rain (Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co., with the Patent Office in Washington 1872): 9-76. and had served as interim commissioner for ten days when Cleveland became 15. Daily Democratic Statesman, 16 April president. He and Farwell had repeat 1879; Francis B. Heitman, comp., edly discussed rainmaking by concus Historical Register and Dictionary ofthe sion and likely it was the senator who United States Army (Washington: Gov was responsible for his appointment. ernment Printing Office, 1903) 1:851; Depositions in R. G. Dyrenforth Service U.S. Patent Office, Specifications and Record, National Archives; Who Was Drawings of Patents for July, 1880 Who lnAmerica (1897-1942) (Chicago: (Washington: Government Printing Marquis, 1943) 1:355; Who's Who in Office, 1880) 1:179, 642-43; Ruggles to America (1901-1902) (Chicago: Mar Secretary of the Navy (16 April 1879), quis, 1901), 332; New York Sun, 9 Weather Bureau Correspondence, August 1891; Washington Post, 9 July (Misc. Series), 1879, file 1073, Box 1910. 348; Ruggles to Secretary of War (17

IO 18. Experiments in Production of Rainfall, ington, 7 November 1892), both in Senate Exec. Doc. no. 45, 52nd Cong., Weather Bureau Correspondence 1st Sess., 1891-92, pp. 11-12, 13-14, 20- (1890), file 1791, Box 840; Dallas 21, 23; Rocky Mountain News, 12 Morning News, 22November1892; San August 1891; Washington Post, 13 Antonio Daily Express, 4 December August 1891; Chicago Daily Tribune, 12 1892; Kansas Weekly Capital, 17 August 1891; The Sun, 13 August and 6 November 1892. September 1891; Chicago Times, 13 August 1891. 26. San Antonio Daily News, 28 November 1892; San Antonio Daily Express, 30 19. New York Sun, 6 September 1891. November and 4 December 1892; New York World, 4 December 1892; Chicago 20. Experiments in Production ofRainfall, Daily Tribune, 11 December 1892. 27-32, 34, 37-41; Rocky Mountain News, 20 September 1891; Minneapolis 27. See San Antonio Daily Express, 4 Tribune, 20 and 28 September 1891; December 1892; Chicago Tribune, 4 Washington Post, 2, 17, and 19 October December 1892; American Meteorologi- 1891; John C. Rayburn, "The Rainmak- cal Journal 7 (March 1892): 484-93; ers in Duval," Southwestern Historical American Meteorological Journal 9 Quarterly 61(July1957): 101-14; John (February 1893): 459; Agricultural C. Rayburn, "Cannonading the Clouds at Science 6 (July 1892): 296-309. Midland, 1891," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 34 (October 28. Report of the Secretary ofAgriculture . . 1958): 50-66. ... I892 (Washington, D.C.: Govern- ment Printing Office, 1893), 55; San 21. Experiments in Production ofRainfall , Antonio Daily Express, 2 December 53, 55. 1892; San Antonio Daily News, 2 December 1892; San Antonio Evening Star, 2 December 1892; New York 22. North American Review 153 (October Tribune, 21November1892; Detroit 1891): 385-404; Nation 53 (1 and 22 Tribune, 24 November 1892. October 1891): 253-54, 310. See also Engineering Magazine 3 (July 1892): 29. Kansas City Globe-Republican, 3 548-51; Nature 44 (22 October 1891): February 1893; Walter Prescott Webb, 594; Inventive Age 3 (29 December The Great Plains (New York: Grosset 1891): 2. & Dunlap, n.d.), 381; James D. Richardson, comp., A Compilation of the 23. Farm Implement News 12 (September Messages and Papers ofthe Presidents 1891): 72; Farm Implement News 13 (New York: Bureau of National (October 1891): 25. Literature, 1917) 20, index (no page number); F. L. Darrow, "The Problem of 24. Report of the Secretary ofA gricuture .. Making Rain to Order," Saint Nicholas ... I89I (Washington, D.C.: Govern- Magazine 57 (May 1930): 540; Robert ment Printing Office, 1892), 58; entry De C. Ward, "How Far Can Man for 8 June 1892, Congressional Record, Control His Climate?" Scientific 52nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1891-92, pp. Monthly 30 (January 1930): 12-13. 5153, 5155-56; United States Statutes at Large 27 (1892), 76. 30. Dawson County News, 11 June 1909, quoted in Donald E. Green, Land of the 25. Washington Post, 30 October, 4 and 6 Underground Rain: Irrigation on the November 1892; Washington Evening Texas High Plains, I910-I970 (Austin: Star, 3 November 1892; Harrington to L. University of Texas Press, 1973), 70. F. Passailaigue (Washington, 7 Novem- ber 1892), copy; Acting Secretary of the 31. Webb, The Great Plains, 381-82; Weather Bureau to Harrington (Wash- T. Lindsay Baker, Building the Lone

11 Star: An Illustrated Guide to Historic Avalanche, 29 August and 2 Sites (College Station: Texas A&M September 1934. University Press, 1986), 247. 40. Alfred C. Wolf to Secretary of Agricul- 32. DAB 14:112-13; Charles Dudley Eaves, ture (Stockdale, Texas, 27 December "Charles William Post, the Rainmaker," 1902), Weather Bureau Correspondence Southwestern Historical Quarterly 43 (1902), Box 1671, File 149. (April 1940): 425-27; Charles Dudley Eaves and C. A. Hutchinson, Post City, 41. J.M. Mathews to Secretary of Agricul- Texas: C. W. Post's Colonizing Activi- ture J. Sterling Morton (San Antonio, 21 ties in West Texas (Austin: Texas State January 1896), Weather Bureau Corre- Historical Association, 1952), 126-41; spondence (1896), Box 1131; San Charles W. Post to Double U. Co. Antonio Daily Express, 2 August 1895; (Battle Creek, 8 June 1911); Post to Kutzleb, "Rain Follows the Plow," 291- Double U. Co. (Battle Creek, 4 June 92. 1911), telegram; Double U. Co. to Post (Post City, 8 July 1911); A. D. Marhoff 42. Cyclorain (brochure, 1918); from to Double U. Co. Board of Managers Oklahoma State Register (Guthrie), 7 (Post City, 9 June 1918), all in Double U July 1921, quoted in The Cyclorain Company Papers, Southwest Collection. Trust (brochure, 1921), 7; both in Weather Bureau Correspondence ( 1912- 33. Harper's Weekly 55 (24 February 1912): 24), Box 2454. 8; The Illustrated London News 141 (28 September 1912): 473; Eaves, "Charles 43. Cyclorain (brochure, no date); The William Post," 427-34; Marhoff to Cyclorain Trust, (1921), l, 2, 3, 7-8; Double U. Co. (Post City, 5 August and Terrill to the Secretary of Agriculture undated, 1912), Double U. Co. Papers. (Wichita Falls, 27 February 1920); Terrill to Secretary of Agriculture 34. Denver Post, 4 May and 4 August 1935; (Wichita Falls, 29 July 1921), copy; Hurt, The Dust Bowl, 53-54. Terrill to Secretary of Agriculture (Wichita Falls, 12 September 1921); 35. E. L. Torrance to Franklin D. Roosevelt Terrill to Chief of the Weather Bureau (Waco, Texas, 7 June 1935), telegram, (Ft. Worth, 6 December 1918); B. Weather Bureau Correspondence (1931- Bunnemeyer to Chief of the Weather 35), Box 2998; Worster, Dust Bowl 39. Bureau (Houston, 9 December 1918); Terrill to Charles Marvin (Wichita Falls, 36. Louis Gathmann, Rain Produced at Will 8 March and 12 April 1920); all in ibid. (Chicago: n. p., 1891), 8-14; Scientific American Supplement 36 ( 4 November 44. Clarence Ousley to I. N. Terrill (Wash- 1893): 14881. ington, 20 December 1918); Robert De C. Ward to Charles Marvin (Cambridge, 37. Spence, The Rainmakers, 104-15. Mass., 11 January 1919); Marvin to Ward (Washington, 15 January 1919), 38. Paul Cheney to Charles Marvin (Estan- copy; J.B. Newton to Marvin (Washing- cia, New Mexico, 16 March 1924); ton, 7 November 1919); Marvin to Marvin to Cheney (Washington, 22 Newton (Washington, 22 December March 1924), copy; both in Weather 1919), copy; Charles Marvin to Terrill Bureau Correspondence (1912-24), Box (Washington, 5 March 1920), copy; 2454. Marvin to Jump (8 August 1921), memorandum, copy; D. Dawkins to 39. Unidentified clipping, Weather Bureau George M. Sutton (Dallas, 15 August Correspondence (1931-35), Box 2998; 1921), copy; Robert Marvin to Rush D. New York Times, 26, 30 August, and l Simmons (Washington, 20 September September, 1934; Lubbock Morning 1921), copy; William J. Humphreys to

12 Jump (Washington, 17 September 1921), memorandum, copy; all in ibid.

45. Weather modification since World War II is a subject deserving of detailed consideration by historians. Jeff Townsend's brief Making Rain in America: A History (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1975) is excellent in setting forth many of the outlines of the story, but only encourages a more comprehen sive study. Literature on the subject is voluminous and the archives of the numerous federal and state agencies involved provide a rich treasure trove for the interested researcher.

46. San Angelo Evening Standard, 7 August 1952.

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