September 7: Buffalo Graveyard, Devils Lake

It doesn’t happen very often that a large lakebed largely dries out. Yet that is what happened at Devils Lake. North Dakota’s biggest natural lake was full of water when the town of Devils Lake was founded in 1882, with the lake sitting at 1,439.08 feet above sea level. But after that, the water level dropped, decade after decade, until Devils Lake reached its lowest point in recorded history, resting at 1,401 feet in 1940. The lake had fallen 38 feet in 40 years! The always-brackish, salty water got worse and worse, and fish could no longer live in it.