Discover & Discuss Nights at the Museum Frank Melbourne; Rain Wizard or Humbug?

On a hot August day in 1891, Frank Melbourne toiled away inside a darkened stable in Cheyenne, Wyoming. His task? To make it rain. Wyoming and the Great Plains were suffering from a drought in the 1890s, arguably worse than the infamous dust bowl of the 1930s. To ease the suffering, people turned to anyone who promised the knowledge to make the skies open; including a self-proclaimed “Rain Wizard.” In the case of the August 1891 experiment, it worked! The Cheyenne Daily Leader reported “Cheyenne was enveloped in a capacious, energetic and altogether reliable rain storm [sic].” Melbourne next traveled to Idaho, Utah, and Kansas. Could he repeat his wizardry and make it rain, or was he really just a “humbug?”