Local Government and Rainfall: The problem of Local Government in the Northern Great Plains

The westward movement of settlement—into the semi-arid, treeless Great Plains beyond the 100th meridian—carried along with it traditions of local government familiar further east. Settlers organized their newfound lands into the counties, townships, and small school districts to which they were accustomed in the states of their origin. Local-government customs evolved in humid, populous areas were thus transposed to a region destined by weather and other physical conditions to remain a place of sparse population.Predilections in government organization were fortified by a mistaken supposition that agricultural enterprise could be successfully organized and conducted according to the fashion of the East. The homesteading law generally in effect until 1909 (allowing but 160 acres to a settler) reflected this supposition. Moreover, the rectangular survey, with its gridiron of 36-square-mile sections, constituted a ready-made invitation to organize the congressional township as a governmental unit and to make much the same area the basis for school districts.Over the years subsequent to the original peopling of this region, circumstance and harsh experience have forced a revision in predominant beliefs concerning its nature and capabilities. Adjustments in agronomic enterprise and population have perforce occurred, often painfully and distressfully. It remains to be seen what adjustments must correspondingly occur in the organization and functioning of local government, for the basic facts of a region must find reflection in the trials, tribulations, and performance of its overlying governmental institutions.