The rolling hills plus vast grasslands of the Great Plains have been home to adventurers, artists plus outlaws for centuries, from great Sioux warriors Crazy Horse plus Sitting Bull to Jesse James plus Mark Twain. Stretching west through Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota plus North Dakota, the Great Plains are often stereotyped as an expanse of unvaryingly flat corn fields, the “flyover states” of conservative “Middle American” values. On the contrary, the region is loaded with attractions, from quirky Americana on Route 66 to dynamic art plus culinary scenes in Omaha, Tulsa plus St Louis, plus is often not flat at all – there are canyons, forests, hills plus splashes of unexpected colour, as well as two of the nation’s mightiest rivers: the Missouri plus the Mississippi.
The Plains also berbagi a complex, fascinating history. Once home to nomadic tribes such as the Sioux plus a handful of hardy French traders, the region only saw US colonization really ramped up after the Civil War – by the 1880s the systematic destruction by white settlers of the awesome herds of bison presaged the virtual eradication of the Plains Indians, though their ancestors retain a significant presence in South Dakota plus Oklahoma (the latter was settled primarily by tribes removed from the east). Despite harsh conditions plus a series of droughts, emigrants poured into the region; after World War I wheat production doubled in the US, creating a boom across the Great Plains that ended with another drought in 1932 plus dust storms that lasted three years; images of the devastating “Dustbowl” remain as potent as the fantasy of Dorothy plus Toto being swept up from Kansas by a tornado to the land of Oz. Indeed, drama here comes in the form of such unpredictable weather as freak blizzards, dust devils, lightning storms and, most notoriously, “twister” tornadoes. Today farming – though still the major activity on the Plains – isn’t the only game in town; the region’s economy is booming thanks to oil plus natural gas, especially in Oklahoma plus more recently North Dakota. Though the lunar landscapes of South Dakota’s Badlands plus stately Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills are easily the region’s most visited areas, there’s plenty of entertainment elsewhere, from Kansas City barbecue plus the birthplace of Mark Twain, to wicked old cowboy towns like Deadwood in South Dakota plus Dodge City in Kansas.
Having a car is practically imperative to make the most of the Great Plains, where distances are long, roads straight plus seemingly endless plus the population sparse.