When I was in my teens and early twenties living within an hour or so of Fort Worth, I would sometimes hear those who had auto trips planned to New Mexico, Colorado, and points west say that they dreaded the drive across the plains of West Texas. I never identified with those who held that opinion, though--I have always enjoyed the sun, big sky, wind, and seemingly endless vistas and have found the Great Plains scenic in their own threadbare way.
In the eighty years since Walter Prescott Webb wrote "The Great Plains," the book has been considered maybe the definitive guide to the geography and history of the region. Webb's central thesis is that at the ninety-eighth meridian West longitude (a line, incidentally, that I crossed every day during the years of college that I commuted), the topography and climate changed so markedly that the institutions, traditions, and customs of Anglo-American life had to be reworked to make settlement of the Great Plains possible.
Webb presents the history of the Great Plains in the centuries leading up to his time in the early 1930s. The Native American, Spanish, and Texan explorations and conflicts that took place before the region became part of the United States are recalled. The author discusses how the region blocked Southern expansion and slavery in the mid-nineteenth century and how it was an obstacle to the pioneers who were headed to Oregon. Also remembered are the cowboys and their famed post-Civil War cattle drives, and Webb looks at some of the region's literature and cowboy poetry, which in the nineteenth century was not subsidized by the federal government (grin).
The author describes the flora and fauna of the region, including the horse and buffalo. Webb recalls how law, agriculture, and homestead laws had to be refashioned to succeed on the Great Plains, and talks about inventions such as sign language, the six-shooter, barbed wire, and windmills that those who lived in the region used to make life there possible.
Then as now, water and water rights were of vital importance on the Great Plains. Webb discusses agriculture and irrigation, and looks at laws and customs that were eventually implemented to govern the use of water. The book is outdated in this section, as it was written before the Ogallala Aquifer was in wide use to irrigate the region.
"The Great Plains" is still considered a classic work going on a century after Webb wrote it, and anyone who would learn more about this overlooked but fascinating part of our country would definitely find it rewarding.
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A person's definition of good is different from mine.
My mother was a librarian. I worked in the library while in college. I would not say this book is in good condition simply based on the marker art done to the pages.
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