Saved By A Tumbleweed

Many people who have spent their lives on the High Plains have dreamed of making some use of that nasty, noxious, prickly, omnipresent thistle, the tumbleweed. On one occasion it did have its moment of glorious utility. It saved a bank, and maybe a community, and thus altered the course of many people's lives.

"Will the bank close? What will we do if it does?" These were the topics of conversation on Main Street in Ulysses in Grant County, Kansas, in the summer and fall of 1930. Many thought that the bank was certain to fail, that there was too much money lent, that the price of grain was too low, that the farmers would never be able to pay their debts. The infamous crash of 1929 on Wall Street had spread its poison of doubt and discouragement throughout the land, and Grant County was no exception.

No doubt everybody worried, but the burden was particularly heavy on those people who were trying to keep businesses operating. A businessman had to buy goods to sell to his customers. He couldn't feed his family the produce of his land. He needed money, perhaps to a greater degree than the farmers. Moreover, when a business closed, it often meant that an employee or two, as well as the owner, would be out of work.

Then the worst happened. The bank closed. The life of the community was altered dramatically. People couldn't pay other people for goods or work. Some businesses failed. Things began to fall apart. Finally, a few businessmen who believed firmly in Grant County and its future determined to get the bank opened and to keep their firms operating. They knew it would take hard work, and they knew they would have to pledge their own property, and somehow obtain the pledge of the property of the few people in the county with unencumbered assets. They deemed the goal worthy of the sacrifice. They went to work.

Of course it wasn't easy, and although several men were involved, not all of them could devote equal time to the task of getting others to sign to put up their land, livestock, and even their homes for the sake of a cause that looked so hopeless. Thus the work of traveling from farm to farm, from one business to another in the county, fell largely into the hands of two men — CD. Hickok and D.C. Sullivan Mr Hickok was past seventy. He had been a banker in the early days of the town, so felt a personal as well as a financial involvement in the fate of the bank. Mr. Sullivan was younger — in his mid-forties — but since his father had also been involved informally in banking in the early days, he too felt a personal involvement in the cause.

For at least a month they went out daily to talk to someone, but often they would return merely tired, feeling worn and discouraged. Nevertheless, they gradually succeeded. Little by little they were able to obtain almost enough security to meet the need. They decided to talk — once again — to one of the wealthier men in the county who though a good and loyal friend, was careful with his money and had not thrown his lot in with the group whose efforts to save the bank must have seemed each day less and less practical.

The day the two men drove out to see the gentleman (he lived several miles from town), the weather was nice. But in the farmhouse a long and tedious conversation took place, and while they were talking the wind began to gust. Finally, after using all their persuasive talent, they got the careful man to agree to pledge his property. He signed the paper they had brought.

The older man, Mr. Hickok, put the paper in his coat pocket and they left the farm, too relieved to be worried by the dark cloud of dust on the horizon. But the storm blew in, and only people who lived in the area at the time can really appreciate what those words mean. Dust storms in the '30s were dreadful things.

Visibility was soon near zero. They drove on, but at an especially bad time the road couldn't be seen at all from within the car. Since Mr. Sullivan was driving, Mr. Hickok got out to walk in front of the car. He was dressed in a black suit, a heavy, somewhat bulky figure; still, Mr. Sullivan could barely see the wind buffeted man in front of the car when he grabbed at the breast pocket of his coat, then began to look frantically about. Mr. Sullivan got out and the older man shouted above the wind: the paper they had worked so hard to get had been blown from his pocket.

They began to look about the car, then to work their way back with the wind along the way they had come, shielding their eyes from the dust, wondering if they went far if they would be able to find their way back to the car, yet driven to go on because if they didn't find the paper they were not at all certain they could ever get the sensible farmer after such a day to sign another one like it. Then the dust lifted for a moment and they saw it, caught in a big tumbleweed beside the road. They got the paper, made their way back to the car and eventually on to Ulysses, carrying with them the fate of the bank saved by a tumbleweed.

The tumbleweed went the way of all tumbleweeds. It was, of course, the vision and work of all of the men, including that of the careful farmer, Charles Gall, that enabled the Grant County State Bank to reopen and eventually to prosper along with the community. Yet one wonders what would have happened if that big thistle had not been there during that duststorm on that day half a century ago?