April 22, 2025 • 14 mins
A historical series that narrates the significant events and figures that shaped the nation's past, offering educational and engaging stories. The episodes highlight the spirit of exploration and perseverance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The American Trail, the American Trail blazed in Blood, defended
(00:23):
in Blood.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Chapter six. The Golden Ocean.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Seems to me I can still see the covered wagon away.
They rolled along the Cumberland Road heading west. Only when
me and Kathy crossed into Illinois. We went along knee
drive and the two horses, and Kathy sitting beside me
on our wagon, just the two of us. Me and
(01:09):
Kathy used to have a piece of land in the
Virginia Valley. When we decided to move west, I saddled
a horse, went around saying goodbye to my neighbors. There
was Cyrus McCormick. His folks had a big farm in
the valley, and big enough so they had their own
blacksmith shops. And that was where Cyrus spent most of
his time, bending pieces of iron into all kinds of
(01:30):
queer shape. You're still falling around with that contraption in Cyrus,
you'll see sit down, say if you use that bear,
I reckon, I'm not staying Therusther's cider in the picture.
Help yourself. You got time for that anyhow. If I
think I just fock got this machine figured out, and
I'll ever do a man's work. Even if you do
get it a run, do the work of twenty men
(01:52):
in a quarter of the time. Jeff, there's a need
for this machine. I don't see no need for it.
Or listen, you know when my folks first came to
this country seventeen forty three going on ninety years ago.
Oh what about it? We're still plowing and reaping just
the way they did when they first came here. Oh
what's wrong with that? I'll tell you something else. We're
still plowing and reaping the way people did four thousand
(02:13):
years ago. There can't be much wrong with it. Jeff,
felts like you make me tired. Farming all be made
much easier and quicker. A man who's worth his salt
doesn't want things made easier for him, Jeff. When I've
got this machine, reaper work, and I wouldn't say you
want if you baked me for it, Cyrus, you'd have
to travel a long way to sell me. One me
(02:34):
and Kathy were leaving here, leaving where he goes out
West Virginia's find Cyrus, but it ain't big enough for me.
A few days later, me and Kathy set off. I
can't even remember all the places where we went, Ohio, Indiana,
(02:54):
some states that only had a handful of people, no roads,
hardly anything you could call a town, just every once
in a while, a little cluster of cabins on all
that land. Then we moved even further west into Illinois.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Nothing but plain, plain, When are we gonna see some people?
I'll forget what people look like.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And then one night we drove into a big covered
wagon camp, maybe a couple of hundred settlers from New England,
from Europe. Right, nice bunch. I'm Fred Tucker, wagonmaster that's trained. Well,
howdy Fred, I'm Jeff Baker, my wife Cathy. Oh damn,
it's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Oh I could cry. I'm happy you see people again?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well I bet you could, ma'am. You people staying here,
going on, We don't have to go any further. Just
beyond that ridge, yonder, no further than that. Yeah, yeah,
you see where I'm pointing. I see some of us
rode over there this morning. Man, you should see the soil. Jeff.
We can grow enough food in that country to feed
all thirteen minute people in the United States. Rackon, this
(04:04):
is where me and my wife are gonna stay. Then
it was the middle of summer we moved in on
the Great Plains. We staked out land, built log cabins,
shellars for the horses and cattle. But by that time
(04:26):
winter sat in. It was a hard winter, a long one.
Snow drifting across the plains, fourteen sometimes twenty foot deep,
sound of cold winds sweeping down in the Continental Divide,
whipping across the Great Plains.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Neighbors living five miles away, we can't even get to
see him.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
It's lonesome, all right. But wait till spring. We'll see everybody.
Then SnO, that snow it's gonna melt one of these days.
It'll soak into that good soil. And then it came
the spring. The real hot weather hadn't set in yet,
(05:21):
just right for hard work. The two horses had grown fat.
They wanted to work. They wanted to be hitched up
to the plow, and wanted to feel the soil under
their feet. Hey, bullet, foiler up, get rid of that
rest while while this is man's work, it's real man's work.
(05:44):
Hey up, fat gee, your back high up, conner. And
it was summer hot, like a desert. The week came up.
We thought the sun had burned it up, But it
was good wheat strong. The soil was full of moisture
(06:06):
in that winter snow. Kathy, did you ever see a
sight like this before?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Oh it's beautiful, Jeff, real beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
You're right all through this country. Days and days it's
all you'd see, miles mild waving corn wheat.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
It's like looking at a golden ocean.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Far as you can see, it all belongs to us.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
But Jeff, you'll like to let me help you with
the harvest.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You just could use some help. I'll hate to see
you working in the fields, Kathy.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, you can't do it alone. You just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Jeff.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You have to know to the day when to start reading.
It's a man's work, all right, bending over all day,
bending and swinging that side, Kathy following me, bundling up
the wheat as I cut it. Oh, look at the
color of this wheat, Kathy, the size of it.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Jeff, I can't stand the sun, Jeff. I feel like
I'm gonna faint.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I got hold of you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I feel so dizzy for the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I got hold of you. I'm going to carry you
back to the cabin.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I want to help you out of help.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
No, oh, Kathy, I won't let you work in the
field no more, never again. It's too much for you.
This is too much. When Kathy felt a little better,
I went back to the field out there, just me alone,
in the middle of all that week, with a job
(07:43):
of reaping to do, before something happened and I lost
my harvest. I'll never forget that day, first sound of thunder,
Me looking up at the sky, seeing it get dark
and darker until it was near black and black and orange,
(08:04):
and everything looking queer yellow color. Sick, feeling at the
pit of my stomach, the rain coming, big rain. Me
standing there in my field, staring up at the sky,
crazy like crazy and yelling something. Now, now give me
(08:25):
a week, just one week.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Then you cut my harvest, store rolling up for me,
Just give me a little.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
More time, holid sheet of water, and somebody had opened
up the sky. I just stood there, seemed like my
week wasn't there no more, all flattened out. Oh yeah,
(08:59):
all gone, the harvest gone ruin. Only we'd have a
little more time, If only I could have had that
sweet cut before it happened. The hot sun came out
(09:21):
next morning, but I had no harvest left me and Kathy.
We just stood outside the cabin looking.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I was so happy here, I was content. Now I'm
scared again.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yes, I want to leave. We could get through winter.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Maybe next year, next year, next year, it'll be something else.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
See, Kathy, we need some help. We could only if
we'd only get it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Where are you going to get anybody to help you?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, you're right. I know you're right, Kathy. Only we're
still pretty young.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
We won't be much longer. We'll be old before a time. Jeff,
let's go back anywhere. I don't care where, just so
we don't stay here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It's too big for us.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Here, it's too much for one man.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We started getting ready to leave, me and Kathy, a
lot more of the settlers. Then one morning, Fred Tucker
rode over.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Jeff, Kathy, saddle up and come with me.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Come on, there's a fellow down by the river, a
fellow from Virginia Valley. He's got something to show us.
I'll listen a lot of you. I'm no crazy man.
I tell you don't have to quit your land, you
don't have to go back, and you don't need to
hire more help. It was him, Cyrus McCormick a few
(10:58):
years older. Now, I have so much of a dreamers
when we last saw him, but real business like standing
there beside the river, one hand on his reaper machine
and talk to us. That machine was the queerest looking
contraption any of us had ever set eyes on. Here.
It is my friend's a McCormick. Reaper. Takes only one
(11:19):
man and one horse to run it, and it does
the work of twenty men and half the time. Cyrus,
you can't prove a thing around here. We ain't got
no wheat to cut. I'm not here to prove anything, Jeff,
I'm here to take orders. I've just come from Ohio
and Indiana. It was harvest time. I demonstrated this same
machine to a lot of farmers back there. They saw
(11:39):
how it worked.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You tell your machines to them.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It's mcconick. I took orders, promised delivery in time for
next year's harvest.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Sirrus, how would we pay for one even if we
stayed on here?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You buy on credit, Kathy, pay later. It'll be you.
I'll sell one to Kathy. I told ten years ago
I wouldn't sell him one. Well, Sirrahs, that ain't no
way to remember an old friend. But I was just
telling Kathy, it don't make sense for a man to
break his back when he can get a machine to
do his work for him. Don't make no sense at all.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Cyrus, We'll buy one, Kathy, Wait till next year.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Wait do you see us plow on this land and
waiting for harvest time? Wait do you see me sitting
up there in that seat, like I was a king
driving my own raper machine, Like he was a king
(12:43):
driving his own raper machine, as far as he could see,
the yellow weed waiting in the sun, and him king
of it all the cold e nocean. Yes, they're on
the great Plains, and the caliceper met the need of
the day brought to farmers an end to drudgery. A
(13:12):
century and a quarter of progress has passed since then.
Today tractors replaced horses. Machines plow the soil, reap the harvest,
bind them fresh the wheat. The great Plains of America
have become a bread basket of the free world. Out
of this very heart of America, thunder prey cause laden
(13:33):
with brains, enough for our domestic needs, enough for foreign trade.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
As American wheat close to the four corners of the Earth,
the product of the Golden Ocean.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
This has been the sixth chapter in the Story of
the American Nations, brought you by the Ladies Auxiliary to
the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Next week, another story to
(14:17):
make you proud of this great country of ours, as
we follow the American Trail.
The American Trail, the American Trail blazed in Blood, defended
(00:23):
in Blood.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Chapter six. The Golden Ocean.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Seems to me I can still see the covered wagon away.
They rolled along the Cumberland Road heading west. Only when
me and Kathy crossed into Illinois. We went along knee
drive and the two horses, and Kathy sitting beside me
on our wagon, just the two of us. Me and
(01:09):
Kathy used to have a piece of land in the
Virginia Valley. When we decided to move west, I saddled
a horse, went around saying goodbye to my neighbors. There
was Cyrus McCormick. His folks had a big farm in
the valley, and big enough so they had their own
blacksmith shops. And that was where Cyrus spent most of
his time, bending pieces of iron into all kinds of
(01:30):
queer shape. You're still falling around with that contraption in Cyrus,
you'll see sit down, say if you use that bear,
I reckon, I'm not staying Therusther's cider in the picture.
Help yourself. You got time for that anyhow. If I
think I just fock got this machine figured out, and
I'll ever do a man's work. Even if you do
get it a run, do the work of twenty men
(01:52):
in a quarter of the time. Jeff, there's a need
for this machine. I don't see no need for it.
Or listen, you know when my folks first came to
this country seventeen forty three going on ninety years ago.
Oh what about it? We're still plowing and reaping just
the way they did when they first came here. Oh
what's wrong with that? I'll tell you something else. We're
still plowing and reaping the way people did four thousand
(02:13):
years ago. There can't be much wrong with it. Jeff,
felts like you make me tired. Farming all be made
much easier and quicker. A man who's worth his salt
doesn't want things made easier for him, Jeff. When I've
got this machine, reaper work, and I wouldn't say you
want if you baked me for it, Cyrus, you'd have
to travel a long way to sell me. One me
(02:34):
and Kathy were leaving here, leaving where he goes out
West Virginia's find Cyrus, but it ain't big enough for me.
A few days later, me and Kathy set off. I
can't even remember all the places where we went, Ohio, Indiana,
(02:54):
some states that only had a handful of people, no roads,
hardly anything you could call a town, just every once
in a while, a little cluster of cabins on all
that land. Then we moved even further west into Illinois.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Nothing but plain, plain, When are we gonna see some people?
I'll forget what people look like.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And then one night we drove into a big covered
wagon camp, maybe a couple of hundred settlers from New England,
from Europe. Right, nice bunch. I'm Fred Tucker, wagonmaster that's trained. Well,
howdy Fred, I'm Jeff Baker, my wife Cathy. Oh damn,
it's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Oh I could cry. I'm happy you see people again?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well I bet you could, ma'am. You people staying here,
going on, We don't have to go any further. Just
beyond that ridge, yonder, no further than that. Yeah, yeah,
you see where I'm pointing. I see some of us
rode over there this morning. Man, you should see the soil. Jeff.
We can grow enough food in that country to feed
all thirteen minute people in the United States. Rackon, this
(04:04):
is where me and my wife are gonna stay. Then
it was the middle of summer we moved in on
the Great Plains. We staked out land, built log cabins,
shellars for the horses and cattle. But by that time
(04:26):
winter sat in. It was a hard winter, a long one.
Snow drifting across the plains, fourteen sometimes twenty foot deep,
sound of cold winds sweeping down in the Continental Divide,
whipping across the Great Plains.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Neighbors living five miles away, we can't even get to
see him.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
It's lonesome, all right. But wait till spring. We'll see everybody.
Then SnO, that snow it's gonna melt one of these days.
It'll soak into that good soil. And then it came
the spring. The real hot weather hadn't set in yet,
(05:21):
just right for hard work. The two horses had grown fat.
They wanted to work. They wanted to be hitched up
to the plow, and wanted to feel the soil under
their feet. Hey, bullet, foiler up, get rid of that
rest while while this is man's work, it's real man's work.
(05:44):
Hey up, fat gee, your back high up, conner. And
it was summer hot, like a desert. The week came up.
We thought the sun had burned it up, But it
was good wheat strong. The soil was full of moisture
(06:06):
in that winter snow. Kathy, did you ever see a
sight like this before?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Oh it's beautiful, Jeff, real beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
You're right all through this country. Days and days it's
all you'd see, miles mild waving corn wheat.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
It's like looking at a golden ocean.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Far as you can see, it all belongs to us.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
But Jeff, you'll like to let me help you with
the harvest.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You just could use some help. I'll hate to see
you working in the fields, Kathy.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, you can't do it alone. You just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Jeff.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You have to know to the day when to start reading.
It's a man's work, all right, bending over all day,
bending and swinging that side, Kathy following me, bundling up
the wheat as I cut it. Oh, look at the
color of this wheat, Kathy, the size of it.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Jeff, I can't stand the sun, Jeff. I feel like
I'm gonna faint.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I got hold of you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I feel so dizzy for the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I got hold of you. I'm going to carry you
back to the cabin.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I want to help you out of help.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
No, oh, Kathy, I won't let you work in the
field no more, never again. It's too much for you.
This is too much. When Kathy felt a little better,
I went back to the field out there, just me alone,
in the middle of all that week, with a job
(07:43):
of reaping to do, before something happened and I lost
my harvest. I'll never forget that day, first sound of thunder,
Me looking up at the sky, seeing it get dark
and darker until it was near black and black and orange,
(08:04):
and everything looking queer yellow color. Sick, feeling at the
pit of my stomach, the rain coming, big rain. Me
standing there in my field, staring up at the sky,
crazy like crazy and yelling something. Now, now give me
(08:25):
a week, just one week.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Then you cut my harvest, store rolling up for me,
Just give me a little.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
More time, holid sheet of water, and somebody had opened
up the sky. I just stood there, seemed like my
week wasn't there no more, all flattened out. Oh yeah,
(08:59):
all gone, the harvest gone ruin. Only we'd have a
little more time, If only I could have had that
sweet cut before it happened. The hot sun came out
(09:21):
next morning, but I had no harvest left me and Kathy.
We just stood outside the cabin looking.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I was so happy here, I was content. Now I'm
scared again.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yes, I want to leave. We could get through winter.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Maybe next year, next year, next year, it'll be something else.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
See, Kathy, we need some help. We could only if
we'd only get it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Where are you going to get anybody to help you?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, you're right. I know you're right, Kathy. Only we're
still pretty young.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
We won't be much longer. We'll be old before a time. Jeff,
let's go back anywhere. I don't care where, just so
we don't stay here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It's too big for us.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Here, it's too much for one man.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We started getting ready to leave, me and Kathy, a
lot more of the settlers. Then one morning, Fred Tucker
rode over.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Jeff, Kathy, saddle up and come with me.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Come on, there's a fellow down by the river, a
fellow from Virginia Valley. He's got something to show us.
I'll listen a lot of you. I'm no crazy man.
I tell you don't have to quit your land, you
don't have to go back, and you don't need to
hire more help. It was him, Cyrus McCormick a few
(10:58):
years older. Now, I have so much of a dreamers
when we last saw him, but real business like standing
there beside the river, one hand on his reaper machine
and talk to us. That machine was the queerest looking
contraption any of us had ever set eyes on. Here.
It is my friend's a McCormick. Reaper. Takes only one
(11:19):
man and one horse to run it, and it does
the work of twenty men and half the time. Cyrus,
you can't prove a thing around here. We ain't got
no wheat to cut. I'm not here to prove anything, Jeff,
I'm here to take orders. I've just come from Ohio
and Indiana. It was harvest time. I demonstrated this same
machine to a lot of farmers back there. They saw
(11:39):
how it worked.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
You tell your machines to them.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It's mcconick. I took orders, promised delivery in time for
next year's harvest.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Sirrus, how would we pay for one even if we
stayed on here?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You buy on credit, Kathy, pay later. It'll be you.
I'll sell one to Kathy. I told ten years ago
I wouldn't sell him one. Well, Sirrahs, that ain't no
way to remember an old friend. But I was just
telling Kathy, it don't make sense for a man to
break his back when he can get a machine to
do his work for him. Don't make no sense at all.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Cyrus, We'll buy one, Kathy, Wait till next year.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Wait do you see us plow on this land and
waiting for harvest time? Wait do you see me sitting
up there in that seat, like I was a king
driving my own raper machine, Like he was a king
(12:43):
driving his own raper machine, as far as he could see,
the yellow weed waiting in the sun, and him king
of it all the cold e nocean. Yes, they're on
the great Plains, and the caliceper met the need of
the day brought to farmers an end to drudgery. A
(13:12):
century and a quarter of progress has passed since then.
Today tractors replaced horses. Machines plow the soil, reap the harvest,
bind them fresh the wheat. The great Plains of America
have become a bread basket of the free world. Out
of this very heart of America, thunder prey cause laden
(13:33):
with brains, enough for our domestic needs, enough for foreign trade.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
As American wheat close to the four corners of the Earth,
the product of the Golden Ocean.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
This has been the sixth chapter in the Story of
the American Nations, brought you by the Ladies Auxiliary to
the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Next week, another story to
(14:17):
make you proud of this great country of ours, as
we follow the American Trail.
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