Library program focuses on drought and pestilence

Crook County Library is hosting the program “Frozen and Boiled: The Weather Extremes of 1936” by Tim Velder on Friday, April 9 at the library meeting room in Sundance. The program will begin at 7 p.m. and is free to the public.

Throughout the history of America’s upper Great Plains, weather is almost always among the top three factors in the success or failure of a people. One harsh winter. One brutal drought. One season of pestilence.

Any one of those things happening in one calendar year burns into the memories of those who survived it. But, imagine a year when not only did all three of those things happen in succession – but at record levels. That year was the legendary and overlooked year of 1936.

Local amateur historian Tim Velder has researched National Weather Service records, newspaper accounts and testimony from his 101-year-old grandmother to learn more about this “very bad year.”

Tim Velder is a communications specialist with Powder River Energy and a native of the northern Black Hills area. Tim has been collecting information on our local history since his college days at Black Hills State University in the early 1990s.

He hauled a pile of history research materials with him in his 2012 move to Sundance from Butte County, South Dakota. Tim’s former career in the newspaper business allowed him access to interviews and archival materials, which breathe life into stories about our local history.

For more information, please contact Jill Mackey at Crook County Library, 283-1006 or [email protected]