Q 01/05

The Dust Bowl drought came in three waves; the last of them spanned which years?

A) 1939-40

B) 1936-37

C) 1941-42

D) 1932-33

Answer · why

A) 1939-40

The first two waves were 1934 and 1936, though parts of the High Plains stayed dry for eight years.

Q 02/05

The Dust Bowl region lies mostly west of which meridian, on the High Plains?

A) The 110th

B) The 105th

C) The 100th

D) The 120th

Answer · why

C) The 100th

The semi-arid area gets under 20 inches of rain a year and was once called the Great American Desert.

Q 03/05

What real-estate promoters' slogan convinced settlers the plains climate had changed for good?

A) "Wheat is king"

B) "Rain follows the plow"

C) "The desert shall bloom"

D) "Go west, young man"

Answer · why

B) "Rain follows the plow"

An unusually wet spell after the Civil War seemed to confirm it.

Q 04/05

How large were the "quarter section" plots offered under the Homestead Act of 1862?

A) 160 acres

B) 320 acres

C) 480 acres

D) 640 acres

Answer · why

A) 160 acres

The Kinkaid Act of 1904 later granted 640 acres in western Nebraska because 160 was too little for arid land.

Q 05/05

Which two events raised wheat prices and encouraged farmers to plow up far more of the plains?

A) The 1929 crash and the early New Deal

B) The Klondike gold rush and the Boer War

C) The Spanish flu and national Prohibition

D) World War I and the Russian Revolution

Answer · why

D) World War I and the Russian Revolution

On the Llano Estacado, farmland doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled between 1925 and 1930.