The Grapes of Wrath: Oklahoma

From my tour of the Hi-Lo country. Boise City is the county seat of Cimarron County, the westernmost end of the Oklahoma panhandle. This was the heart of the Dustbowl of the Thirties, and it is looking pretty dry these days. The only water I saw was in the Arkansas River and that was a trickle. Of course in this season most of the year's moisture is still locked up in mountain snow. But there is not a lot up there. The West may be in for another dry summer.
      The handsome bank building and the courthouse were both built in the late 1920s. Within a couple of years the grapes of wrath were being stomped around here, and people were hitting the road for California, where Merle Haggard was born (Oildale, Calif., 1937)