Back in the early 1930s, farmers in the state of Iowa were in a right state. The Great Depression had been raging for two years, and things were looking bleak. Sales were down, the banks had closed, and drought had made matters even worse. Then, these farmers discovered that the Iowa legislature had passed a law that required testing all dairy cows in the state to be tested for bovine tuberculosis. That, in a nutshell, was the beginning of the Iowa Cow War of the 1930s.
The match that lit the fuse for the war would be started by the owner of an Iowa radio station, which prompted mass riots by Iowa farmers, ultimately leading to the deployment of thousands of members of the National Guard to Iowa farms.
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The Iowa Cow War of 1931
The Cow War primarily took place in Cedar County, Iowa, in 1931.
It revolved around the testing for bovine tuberculosis on Iowa Farms. Even though a law had been passed, many farmers resisted the testing, fearing that the testing itself would give the cows tuberculosis…