Rain making used to be a fairly profitable industry back in the day. Men and a few women would claim that they could make the skies open up and the rain start falling. Like the shamans of long ago, the rain makers would chant, pray, and use other tools, like dynamite, to encourage rain.
This 1912 newspaper article is about the rain makers of the time.
Some Rainmaker
You undoubtedly read a few days ago a little item from the Panhandle of Texas about how “rainmakers” had produced a good two-day rain by firing off dynamite.
Probably you smiled. But if you did, you’ve got another guess coming. That rainmaking thing is on the square. If you don’t believe it, you can wire ‘Charley’ Post, care of the Coliseum, Chicago. He’ll prove it to you.
C.W. Post, who comes from Battle Creek and radiates breakfast food and cheer, the other day, ran down to his ranch — consisting of one county about the size of New Hampshire — brought down rain just in time to save his cotton crop, and then beat it for the big show in Chicago.
“All I’ve got to say about rainmaking,” declares Post, “is that I’ve done it three years running when there wasn’t the slightest chance of rain according to all indications. If you think it’s merely coincidence, I’ve nothing more to say.”
Source: The Day Book (Chicago, Illinois newspaper). June 14, 1912.
