The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time, written by New York Times journalist Timothy Egan, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2006) and the Washington State Book Award (2006). Egan chronicles the history of the Dust Bowl from the late 1800s to 1939, unfolding the tragedy of errors that led to the environmental and economic disasters of the 1930s. Readers experience historical events through stories of survivors: farmers, cowboys, ranchers, merchants, investors and professionals. Egan chooses survivors from the worst hit areas. The towns and counties his main characters are from form an almost perfect circle of the Dust Bowl. Egan begins in southern Nebraska (Inavale);then drops south, to eastern Oklahoma (Shattuck); continues west, through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle areas (Dalhart, and Boise City); and finishes in the southeast corner of Colorado (Baca County).

In the first section of The Worst Hard Time (“Promise: The Great Plow-up, 1901-1930”), Egan describes how real estate agents, railroads, writers, and the United States government entice settlers to inhabit the Dust Bowl region. One real estate company in Boise City, Oklahoma sells fraudulent lots by distributing fliers with false pictures of trees and a gushing water fountain in the center of town.