During the 1930s severe drought plagued the states in the Great Plains and deepened the Depression. High winds caused dust storms which blackened the sky. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt initiated a program to help stabilize the blowing soil and put people to work. His prairie states forestry project envisioned planting wide belts of trees from North Dakota to Texas to protect cropland and reduce damage to the environment.
The Nation’s first shelterbelt was planted on the Horace E. Curtis farm near Mangum in Greer county, OK. Oklahoma’s first state forester George R. Phillips planted the first tree on Mar. 18, 1935. From 1935 to 1942, 223 million trees were planted in 18,599 miles of shelter belts throughout the plains states with 2,996 miles in Oklahoma. The nation’s number one shelterbelt is located five miles east and one mile north of Magnum, Oklahoma. Like many of the original shelterbelts and the narrower windbreaks planted since then, it continues to provide conservation benefits to this day.
As more settlers moved into Oklahoma and other parts of the southwestern Great Plains region, the many farmlands and cattle ranches they established destroyed native prairie grasses. When a massive drought hit Oklahoma in 1930, strong winds whisked up the arid, over-farmed and over-grazed land, darkening the skies with dust and rendering much of the land un-farmable. Oklahoma became one of the most impacted areas of what became known as the Depression-era “Dust Bowl.”
Between 1930 and 1940, refugees from 19 Dust Bowl states began fleeing westward, mainly to Arizona and California. Disdainful locals rejected many poor and homeless refugees, and “Okie” soon became a term of disdain used to refer to any poor Dust Bowl migrant, regardless of their state of origin. John Steinbeck famously chronicled the phenomenon in his Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, Grapes of Wrath. By the end of the Great Depression decade, Oklahoma had lost a net total of 440,000 residents.
Oklahoma’s drought monitor comes out every Thursday. I don’t need a drought monitor from the Feds. I can just look at the lateral lines above my septic tank and tell if we’re still in a drought.
The past week has really been good to me in finding people with unclaimed property at the State Treasurers Office in OKC. I’ve united a couple dozen Oklahomans, mainly in Ardmore, with 10s of thousand of dollars. These were people who had no idea there was unclaimed insurance waiting for them to claim. It would behove you to search for your name and your kin/friends name on their website at the link below.
I did receive an message from a lady saying the State is way behind on processing claims.
Wendy Stewart Holland said:
9/01/26 – I received a response to the claim I submitted June 15th 2026
“We currently have a backlog period of six months before the claim is assigned to an auditor. You will receive a letter at that time. Thank you”
I’ve created a webpage on my website with info, Q&As and tips on filing a claim
https://oklahomahistory.net/unclaimed-property-tips-and-qas/
Yesterday I even found my uncle Doyle Bridges (1922-2003) who lived in Oklahoma City with 3 accounts of Goodyear Tire shares.
OG&E Electric installed a new meter at our house yesterday. Now I’m dreading getting my next bill from them.
From This Weeks Mailbag
I selected “Allred” as a name to search at the States unclaimed property website because I knew of a few that live in the Velma area. There is a “Addie Allred” with some oil & gas money and no address. When I researched the name, I found that she and a brother (Mike) operated snake pits (tourist traps) near Elk City and later at Alanreed, Texas. Mike passed in 1979 and I have not found info on her death. Apparent others in the family moved to California. I think you might enjoy looking at “Never Quite Lost” – Snakes on the Plain (6/1/2016). -Larry
https://neverquitelost.com/2016/06/01/snakes-on-a-plain/
Tech Corner
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Delete files and data you don’t need that can clog your hard drive. This includes cache files, temporary files, and more.
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I’ve been using the FREE version of ccleaner since May 2005 and its done a great job keeping crap off my computers.
Just got my electricity bill and I believe I got charged for the sunlight, the moonlight, the streetlight, the light of my life, the speed of light, and the light at the end of the tunnel.
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
580-490-6823
https://oklahomahistory.net