American Outback: The Oklahoma Panhandle in the Twentieth Century.

American Outback: The Oklahoma Panhandle in the Twentieth Century. By Richard Lowitt. Plains Histories. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, c. 2006. Pp. xxii, 137. $21.95, ISBN 0-89672-558-8.)

While several states have geographic "panhandles," Oklahoma's westernmost section remains an anomaly. Only 165 miles long and 35 miles wide, this sliver of land still constitutes an American version of the Australian Outback--forbidding, sparsely populated, and often forgotten. As western historian Richard Lowitt explains in this brief text, however, the Oklahoma Panhandle has a history as colorful as it is unique. Its past is a story of opportunity and challenge, according to Lowitt, of accomplishment and despair.

From Lowitt's description, three forces have guided the Panhandle's fate--politics, economy, and geography. Originally unclaimed due to the confluence of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the admittance of Texas as a slave state, the Panhandle became an ungoverned region of desperadoes. Finally joined with Oklahoma upon statehood in 1907, its development was relatively late. Lowitt's focus, therefore, is only on the twentieth century, which he divides into four chronological sections. The first, covering until 1930, notes the region's impressive growth. Here Lowitt explains the importance of the railroads, irrigation, and homesteaders. While cattle ranching remained critical, agriculture soon produced a surprising diversity of crops. The most interesting chapter covers the Dust Bowl and the decade that followed it. Lowitt describes in detail the causes of the misery and the efforts of Panhandle residents to survive. While many fled, the resilience of those who remained was impressive. The importance of the various New Deal programs is obvious, particularly in encouraging proper land use. By the end of the 1940s optimism and prosperity once again reigned, as farmers turned to new soil-friendly crops such as sorghum and as scientists discovered the vast Ogallala Aquifer, which promised new water with new technology.

Prosperity continued in the decades after World War II, the subject of the book's next two sections. The first of these is a rather detailed discussion of attempts in the 1950s and 1960s to build the Optima Dam. Here the persistence of Senator Robert Kerr and his successors prevailed over questionable cost-to-benefit ratios and the objections of the Eisenhower administration. When finally completed, however, the dam never fulfilled its promise and thus remains, in Lowitt's words, "a $46 million pipe dream" (p. 80). Fortunately for residents, the tremendous expansion of oil and gas drilling kept the economy robust. Particularly, the massive Hugoton gas field proved critical. In addition, the construction of new meatpacking plants and the development of the pork industry generated growth.

In the end, Lowitt's fondness for the so-called American Outback is obvious. Although brief, his analysis does not place the Panhandle in a vacuum or deny its shortcomings. This book should find a large audience, and it should be of particular interest to environmental historians. If nothing else, it adds to the literature on the importance of water to the American West.

J. BROOKS FLIPPEN

Southeastern Oklahoma State University