On this day

1800 — In the first U.S. test, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse gave the cowpox vaccination to his son to prevent smallpox.1932 — The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached the low point of the Great Depression, 41.22.1947 — Broadcast reports said a UFO had crash-landed in Roswell, N.M.1978 — At the 92nd Wimbledon men’s tennis finals, Bjorn Borg beat Jimmy Connors.

Working under a moonlit sky in early July 1936, farmers in the Tallula area took to the fields to harvest wheat. Working at night was a way to escape the wither-ing heat of day.

In Springfield, city officials decided to keep the beach house at Lake Springfield, just one year old that summer, open past the regular closing time. At 11 p.m. it was reported that thousands still were in the water at that late hour.

And across the city and state, on each of the 12 straight days that saw temperatures climb over 100 degrees, more died from exposure.

In front yards, on downtown sidewalks, in their own homes, people fell prostrate to the heat. The daytime suffering barely receded at night. On Monday, July 13, the temperature at 7 p.m. was still 103 degrees. There were few places people could hide from

the oppressive condi-tions.

According to nation-al weather records, the 1930s is the warmest decade in U.S. history and the 1936 Heat Wave in July across North America was the most severe. More than 5,000 people died nationwide and a staggering number of crops were lost. Less than half the normal amount of rain fell in central Illinois during May and June.

To compound the suf-fering, it came during the Dust Bowl conditions in the Plains and while the nation endured the Great Depression. Ironically, the summer heat wave of 1936 followed one of the coldest winters on record.

The effect of the prolonged hot spell caused more than human discomfort. Industry in affected states took mea-sures to keep employees safe. General Motors shortened workdays in

factories or stopped pro-duction altogether. Be-cause crops and livestock were affected, consumers faced higher prices for dairy products, produce and meat. In backyards, gardens were “burned to a crisp,” the Illinois State Journal reported. And on farms, wells ran dry.

Selby Maxwell, a self-proclaimed astron-omer and meteorologist, made headlines on July 16 when he declared the drought over. It was not-ed that he also predicted the hot, dry weather six months earlier.

“There would be ‘no more damage from drought’ after tomor-row, he said. “ ‘By July 26, there would be so much rain that everyone is going to see that the drought is ended.’ ”

Maxwell made his de-termination based on the “wobblings” of the moon.

Six months earlier, he boldly predicted the ter-rible weather ahead.

“At that time he

glanced at his long-range forecasting charts based on the distance the moon wobbles in its orbit and predicted that January and February would have heavy snow and that drought would develop during March, April and May and do its worst in June and July.” All that came to pass, the Journal noted.

Whether coincidence or foretold by the wob-bling moon, a strong weather system that evening brought rain to much of the state and the temperature dropped more than 25 degrees af-

ter a high of 107, settling in the more tolerable 80s. It had been the 12th day in a row of insuffer-able heat, but the hot streak was broken.

Today the recurring heat waves of the 1930s and the Dust Bowl con-ditions are blamed on a number of factors. A series of droughts in the early part of the decade left land throughout the Plains parched, limit-ing the cooling effect of evaporation.

Poor land manage-ment, or farming tech-niques, also contributed. Deep plowing of the prai-

The 1930s: Depression, dust and deadly heat

FLASHBACK SPRINGFIELD — July 8, 1936

Monday, July 8, 2013 THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER PXX

rie topsoil caused it to dry even faster, making it subject to wind erosion. It took the development of dry land farming techniques and soil conservation methods to minimize the impact of a prolonged drought.

The heat wave and drought mostly ended in September, but many farmers’ summer crops had been destroyed and thousands of deaths were attributed to the heat.

— Rich SaalDownload this page at

www.sj-r.com/flashback.

How hot was it? On July 20, 1930, T.M. Travis at-tempted to fry an egg on the sidewalk in front of his cafeteria at 624 E. Capitol Ave. The high temperature that day was only 100 degrees, but it was a sign of things to come. FILE/THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER