EDITOR’S NOTE: “Caprock Chronicles” is a weekly series of short articles and essays that examine the life, people, events and historical places of our region’s past. Today’s essay by Paul Carlson, which was originally published in 2016, reviews a powerful sandstorm that hit the near Southwest on Thanksgiving Day 1926.
Monday, Nov. 24, marked the 99th anniversary of one of the most destructive sandstorms to hit the South Plains and the near Southwest.
If newspaper reports are correct, some 80 people died during the 1926 storm, most in Texas and Arkansas. Very high winds with gritty dust and sand damaged crops, wrecked buildings and made Thanksgiving dinners miserable…