On this day in agriculture history | Friday, April 2, 2021

146 years ago

Walter Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Corporation, was born on April 2, 1875 in Wamego, Kansas.

104 years ago

President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, marking the U.S. entry in World War I. The war took several young men away from their family farms and changed the economy dramatically.

20 years ago

The last of the winter snowpack melted at Sanborn in O'Brien County, Iowa. This ended an all-time Iowa state record streak of 147 consecutive days, beginning on November 7th of the previous year, on which Sanborn had reported at least an inch of snow on the ground. Several other locations in northwestern Iowa had streaks of 138 to 145 consecutive days end during the preceding week. Prior to this the Iowa record for consecutive days with a snow depth of at least one inch had been held by Sioux Center with a streak of 137 days from November 17, 1978 to April 2, 1979.

8 years ago

Several top corn growing states reported exceptional drought in the April 2, 2013 U.S. Drought Monitor report including South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.