It is difficult for man to look beyond the scale of his own life. We might have a vague idea of what life was like for our parents before we were born, and we have an idea of how we would like life to be for our children, but for most of us that is as far as we usually think. A while back I was talking to a man who was born in Texas during the early 1950s, but spent much of his childhood out of state.
C.W. Post
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
He told me about how it used to always rain in Texas and how drought was a rare thing when he was a child. This is the despite the massive drought during the 1950s, a period of time author Elmer Kelton called “The Time it Never Rained.”
In truth, much of western Texas has probably known more dry years than wet years.
Truly, fighting drought is nothing new; however, the methods change. While we have new technology to aid our fight, those in times past were also attempting novel ways of breaking a drought. Let me introduce you to C.W. Post.
Post, Texas
If you have ever eaten breakfast cereal, then you have probably eaten a cereal produced by company founded by C.W. Post.
After creating the cereal company, Post suffered a bit of a breakdown and moved to Texas in the late 1800s. He bought land where the Rolling Plains meets the Southern Plains and the city of Post, Texas was founded to create an Utopia society. Of course this was a dry country, but Mr. Post was not content accept it. Remembering stories of large rain storms that would occur after major battles during the Civil War, supposedly due to of the cannon fire, Post declared war on the drought.
Post started by tying dynamite to kites and exploding it over the town (did I mention that Post had suffered a mental breakdown?) For some reason he concluded that this might be a bit too dangerous, so our cereal king changed tactics by igniting bundles of dynamite on the cliffs of the caprock on the edge of town.
Caprock Escarpment that divides the Llano Estacdo from the Rolling Pains
Reportedly, he used as much as 24,000 lbs of explosive in some attempts. It is unclear if his battles were successful, though there are a few stories of rain falling after some of them. It is clear that the cereal king lost the war; while the city of Post is still here, so is drought.
Despite the lost battle, it makes for a good story, and a good reminder for us to look beyond the scale of our own lives.
instante mense 