Great American Desert - Settlement and Development

Settlement and Development

The region's relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible en route to what was considered to be better land farther west. These early settlers gave telling names to the various streams of the region, such as "Sweetwater Creek" or "Poison Creek". Because it was not considered desirable, the area became one of the last strongholds of independent American Indians. Railroad interests seeking rights-of-way through the region also benefited from the popular belief that the land was commercially valueless.

By the mid-19th century, people had begun settling in the region despite its poor reputation. The local inhabitants came to realize the area was at the time well suited for farming, due in part to the fact that large portions of the region sit atop one of the world's largest underground reservoirs, the Ogallala Aquifer. Experts of the era proposed theories that maintained the earlier reports had been accurate and the climate had changed. Some even credited the settlers themselves as having caused the change by planting crops and trees. The slogan "rain follows the plow" was created to describe this belief. Today these theories are discredited.

Additionally, it has been demonstrated that while there is an abundant amount of water in the Ogallala Aquifer, it is slow to replenish itself, with most of the water in the Aquifer having been there since the last Ice Age. Some current estimates predict the usefulness of the Aquifer for agriculture to subside and be useless as soon as the early parts of the mid-21st century, leading current farmers to turn away from irrigated agriculture using the aquifer.