THE EARLY HISTORY OF PANNA MARIA, TEXAS ... - Repositories

The settlers at Panna Maria faced a new test in
1856 and 185 7. During these years they suffered through
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one of the most severe droughts in Texas history.
For
fourteen months there was no rain at the settlement.
Grass seared from the heat, and all the smaller streams
dried up entirely so that livestock wandered away in
search of food and water.
Nothing could be planted, and
what vegetation that existed gradually disappeared leaving
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only the bare earth.
Forty miles north of Panna Maria,
in the area around Seguin, the prairies became so dry
I
^
that they cracked in many places over a foot wide and over
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thirty feet down.
Food prices soared astronomically.
In Karnes County flour sold for twenty-four dollars a
barrel and corn for three dollars a bushel.
The few
settlers that had retained any of their savings quickly |
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used up all they had left simply to buy food.
Several
years later, an American who lived at Helena during the
drought remarked that had it not been for the abundance
of wild game in the country the Silesians "would have
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starved to death."
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Nesterowicz, p. 203.
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Theophilus Noel, Autobiography and Reminiscences
of Theophilus Noel (Chicago: Theo. Noel Company Print,
l9'04) , pp. 41-42.
95
Nesterowicz, p. 203
96
Thomas Ruckman, p. 39.