1886: For hundreds of miles there is no green grass and very little dry, and often no water. The people are moving their cattle before they all die.” C. Richard King. Wagons East: The Great Drouth of 1886. Austin: The University of Texas , 1965.

Immigrants into Texas had been led to believe by land speculators that Texas was a subtropical paradise. Rain was plentiful in the spring of 1885, but by January of 1886 all surface water was gone: “Long strings of wagons are daily seen coming east.” The drought had begun. King, 1965