Entire communities and industries were in severe depression long before the stock market crash in 1929. For Oklahomans, the crash of 1929 only meant that bad became worse.

And rather than leveling off after 1933, Oklahoma’s economy got even worse. In fact, some of the New Deal’s projects helped make the end of the 1930s the very worst years of the Depression in Oklahoma.

E. W. Marland’s mansion was finished in 1928, and he moved in with his new bride, Lyde. Just a few months later, the couple moved out, into a studio built to house the craftsmen while they worked on the great house. E. W. Marland was broke, so broke that he could not pay his mansion’s $800 monthly electric bill.

E. W. Marland's family in Great Depression

Marland Oils thus became Continental, and thousands of Marland’s green triangles were repainted in red and with the name “Conoco.” The new company offered Marland a token and powerless position with a salary of $75,000 a year.

Like the oil industry in Oklahoma, the state’s agriculture was in trouble too and largely for the same reason. Just as overproduction had flooded the oil market, farm output went far beyond demand, and the collapsing prices of commodities measured how far.

Every year Oklahomans raised more cattle; every year the price of beef fell. Every year they grew more cotton; every year cotton prices dropped. Every year they harvested more corn and wheat; every year grain prices tumbled.