Alone in the endless grass

Sometimes we can get a glimpse of what life was like before modern conveniences arrived, of the isolation and back-breaking work our forefathers and foremothers endured. Such is the case at this set of abandoned buildings. The corner of the building in the foreground might have been a bunkhouse. The main house is just visible on the horizon at right.


Civilization barely intrudes on an endless sea of grass. Little topsoil is present in this area. Grass barely disguises limestone. Farming would have been an exercise in futility. Those who lived here would have raised livestock, which require lots of pasture land. Except for the buildings on the horizon, these plains dwellers would have seen no human habitation. Only the wind would have kept them company.

The wind is hard on High Plains dwellers today. What would it have been like for someone alone in the endless grass to listen to the wind's howling day after day? This house was cut from the native rock, but it couldn't have been impervious to the noise of the relentless wind.


At some point, power came to this house. Many farms and ranches were not hooked to power lines until the 1950s. How long did the family who lived here wait for the blessings of electricity and telephones? How long until manual labor was eased? How long until they could reach out and touch someone through the miracle of the telephone? The advent of power and electronic communication, no matter how primitive they seem to us now, would have been cause for great celebration.

The world had come to the lonely High Plains hilltop.