1950s Texas drought

The 1950s Texas drought was a period between 1949 and 1957, in which the state received 30 to 50 percent less rain than normal, while temperatures rose above average. During this time period, Texans experienced the second, third and eighth-driest single years ever in the state – 1956, 1954 and 1951, respectively. The drought was described by a state water official as "the most costly and one of the most devastating droughts in 600 years."

The drought began gradually, and some sources claim it began as early as 1947, starting with a decrease in rainfall in Central Texas. By the summer of 1951, the entire state was in drought. Texas ranchers attempted to evade the effects of the drought by moving their cattle north to Kansas, but the drought spread to Kansas and Oklahoma by 1953. At that point, 75% of Texas recorded below normal rainfall amounts, and over half the state was more than 30 inches below normal rainfall. By 1954, the drought had affected a ten-state area reaching from the mid-west to the Great Plains, and southward into New Mexico and the Deep South, where Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina all experienced their driest calendar year since reliable records began.

As a result of the devastating drought of the 1950s, the number of Texas farms and ranches shrank from 345,000 to 247,000, and the state’s rural population declined from more than a third of the population to a quarter. Ranchers and farmers were hit the hardest by the dual threat of water scarcity and the increasing price of feed. The combined income of Texas farmers fell by one fifth from the previous year, and the price of low-grade beef cattle dropped from 15 to 5 cents a pound. In 1940, 29 percent of employed Texans worked on a farm. That number fell to twelve percent in 1960. Crop yields in some areas dropped as much as 50%. Economic losses from 1950 to 1957 were estimated at $22 billion in 2011 dollars.

Towns suffered from the drought as well, though it was different from the struggles of farmers. Across Texas, at least one thousand communities enforced some type of water restrictions. Some towns went completely dry and had to transport water in by truck or rail. The city of Dallas' reservoirs ran so low that water had to be pumped from the Red River, whose high salt content caused further trouble by damaging water pipes and plants. Corsicana experienced 82 days of temperatures over 100 °F or 37.8 °C, peaking at 113 °F or 45 °C.

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