WADESBORO — Born from the dust-choked fields of the Great Depression, the Brown Creek Soil Conservation District in Anson County became a national model for saving America’s topsoil.

Established in 1937, it was the first of its kind in the nation, demonstrating that local, voluntary action could be an effective solution to a nationwide crisis.

The creation of the district was directly linked to the Dust Bowl, a disastrous combination of drought and poor farming practices that led to massive dust storms across the Great Plains in the 1930s. A native of Anson County, soil scientist Hugh Hammond Bennett led the charge for change. In a now-famous moment during congressional testimony, he used an arriving dust storm in Washington to prove the national scope of soil erosion.

Bennett’s efforts led to the passage of the federal Soil Conservation Act of 1935, which created the Soil Conservation Service. To implement the program on private land, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration drafted model legislation for states to adopt.

North Carolina was the first to act, organizing the Brown Creek district on Aug. 4, 1937. The key features of its model were local leadership, voluntary participation by farmers, and a partnership with the new federal agency for technical support.

The success of the Brown Creek district in controlling erosion on private farmland proved the effectiveness of the local approach. By the end of the 1940s, all 48 states had followed suit.

Today, nearly 3,000 conservation districts across the country still follow the same model pioneered in Anson County, a testament to the district’s lasting legacy.