The Settlement on the Plains
Arran earned its' share of success stories, and produced a Rhodes scholar, university professors, aeronautical engineers, distinguished medical and legal specialists, veterinarians, business executives, high-ranking military officers, radio and television personalities, and generations of very fine people. Being a part of the rugged Wild West, it was not without frontier drama, infrequent but notorious.
Every conceivable calamity descended on the region and its people in the great depression that followed the crash of 1929. The withering heat, the unrelenting winds, and the soil-drifting of the hungry thirties stripped the fertile fields of once-productive topsoil leaving only gravel and sand. Crops that previously harvested 40 bushels annually were stunted to a yield of 2.5 bushels per acre. The price of wheat tumbled to thirty-five cents for a sixty-pound bushel. Survival hung on people helping one another, and on improvising in every way imaginable. The mill bankrupted and remained idle until salvaged for scrap metal in World War II. An anecdote was told of a young baseball player who lost his direction while rounding the bases during a dust storm, and was later found several miles out on the prairie. Dry humor helped to offset broken spirits and down-hearted souls, but the memory of the drought and the dust-laden winds scarred the families and the children of the depression for years to come. Books written later described the "hard times" as ten lost years.
The rains came, and the recovery that followed the economic boom of the war years heralded a new era. The new generation saw a need for rapid expansion. It was not to last. Better roads and a vehicle in most every farmyard and driveway paved the way for shopping in neighboring towns. With the centralization of teaching, historic Pasieka School that was rebuilt several times, closed its doors for the last time in 1959. Its first teacher was Joseph Bohenud. There were twenty-six in all. The last was Christine Wolfe with her class of six students.The rural schools have all disappeared with the winds of time, leaving only nostalgic roadside weather-beaten markers where children once laughed and played. The landmark grain elevators, once known as prairie sentinels, too have vanished. By 2007 the resident population dwindled to forty persons. Except for the steadily diminishing number of survivors who would give everything to live it all over again, Arran's golden years are largely forgotten. The history of Arran is a legacy of memories to those who live from those who live no more.
The Stewart Lumber Mill on the banks of the Swan River.
A September Sunday morning in Arran, 1940.
