34 Nebraskaland • July 2022
n a clear, hot July day a haze came
over the sun," Addison Sheldon
recalled. "The haze deepened into
a gray cloud. Suddenly the cloud
resolved itself into billions of gray
grasshoppers sweeping down upon
the earth. The vibration of their wings
fi lled the ear with a roaring sound like
a rushing storm. As far as the eye could
reach in every direction the air was
fi lled with them. Where they alighted,
they covered the ground like a heavy
crawling carpet."
Sheldon, a Nebraska historian, was
thinking back to when he was 13
years old during the severe drought
of 1874. From July 20 to July 30,
Rocky Mountain locusts (a species
of grasshopper) swarmed over the
central United States in numbers not
seen before or since. From Minnesota
to Texas, an estimated 12.5 trillion
grasshoppers consumed every green
thing in their path.
"In the hardest hit areas, the red-
legged creatures devoured entire
fi elds of wheat, corn, potatoes,
turnips, tobacco, and fruit," historian
Alexandra Wagner writes in a 2008
issue of Nebraska History Magazine.
"The hoppers also gnawed curtains
and clothing hung up to dry or still
being worn by farmers, who frantically
tried to bat the hungry swarms away
from their crops. Attracted to the
salt from perspiration, the over-sized
insects chewed on the wooden handles
of rakes, hoes, and pitchforks, and on
the leather of saddles and harnesses."
The U.S. public responded with
charitable donations, as it had done
"I
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska By David L Bristow History Nebraska
Clouds of Grasshop
