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Fearful dust storm inspires songwriter
On this day in 1935 a great dust storm covered the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa, inspiring Woody Guthrie to write the song "So Long, It's Been Good To Know You." Guthrie had moved to Pampa in 1929. Performing with bands at nightclubs and radio stations in the Panhandle, he found his calling as lyricist and musician and began developing skills that later gained him a reputation as a writer, cartoonist, and down-home philosopher. He married a Pampa girl, Mary Jennings, in 1933 and experienced the pain of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, sources of his many songs that appealed to his fellow sufferers. When the great storm of April 14, 1935, occurred, some Pampans thought that the end of the world was upon them and that there was just time for final goodbyes. Tired of dust and poverty, Guthrie left for Los Angeles in 1937.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- GUTHRIE, WOODROW WILSON [WOODY]
- DUST BOWL
- PAMPA, TX
- PANHANDLE
- Links to other Web sites (will be opened in new browser window)
- THE HANDBOOK OF TEXAS MUSIC
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Coahuila governor discovers and names Guadalupe River (1689)
- First state museum in Texas opens (1933)
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