Hoping for a miracle to save the Ogallala Aquifer? Prepare for the new Dust Bowl.
An ATV races along the dry bed of the Arkansas River at Dodge City, Kansas. Because of irrigation and other factors, the river has been dry since the late 1970s. (Max McCoy)
In the summer of 1894, a curious railway car plied the tracks of western Kansas, a chemical soup wafting to a sky ruled by a demon sun and chastened by moisture-devouring winds. At the helm of this experiment on wheels, owned by the Rock Island railroad, was a 32-year-old train dispatcher who had convinced railway officials and town leaders across the state that he had the secret to make it rain.
The aspiring rainmaker, Clayton B. Jewell, was an instant celebrity in a parched land thirsting for heroes. Rock Island officials were so confident of his ability they eventually designated three cars for his rain-making experiments, which by their count had succeeded in all of 52 attempts.
Jewell kept the concoction of chemicals he sent to the sky a closely held secret and scoffed at others who said they had achieved similar results with his method. In an 1895 letter to his hometown newspaper, the Topeka State Journal, he boasted that if only he had the necessary equipment he would “wager my life itself that I could produce rain in ten minutes in the clearest of skies.”
