On July 21, 1934, Roosevelt launched the Prairie States Forestry Project. By 1942, crews had planted 220 million trees in a belt stretching from the Dakotas to Texas. Experts said trees couldn't survive on the Plains. Seventy percent did.
Farmers have spent decades tearing them out for center-pivot irrigation and extra crop rows. Nebraska has lost 57 percent of its original plantings. In 2017, the state's first federally planted shelterbelt, near Orchard, was toppled, burned, and buried.
On March 14, 2025, dust storms swept that same geography. Twelve people died across Kansas and the Texas Panhandle.