question:  Why was the population of the states along the three Faults so low around the late '40s?
context: It was still a matter of academic interest when in the late '40s geologists speculated on the relationship between the Kiowa Fault and the Conchas Fault farther south, in New Mexico, and which followed the Pecos as far south as Texas. Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was suggested that the Niobrara Fault (just inside and roughly parallel to the eastern border of Wyoming) was a northerly extension of the Kiowa. By the mid sixties it was definitely established that the three Faults were in fact a single line of fissure in the essential rock, stretching almost from the Canadian border well south of the New Mexico-Texas line. It strikes us today as ironic that from the late '50s there was grave concern about the level of the water table throughout the entire area. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. To excuse the other geologists, it must be said that the Kiowa Fault had never acted up before. As the tremors grew bigger, along with the affected area, as several towns including Edison were shaken to pieces by incredible earthquakes, whole bus- and plane-loads of geologists set out for Colorado, without even waiting for their university and government department to approve budgets. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. The Arkansas River, at Avondale and North Avondale, was sluggishly backing north into the deepening trough. Land west of the Fault was holding firm, though Denver had recorded several small tremors; everywhere east of the Fault, to almost twenty miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent several thousand Coloradans scurrying for safety. As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome life.
output:  The land was very dry
options:  Flooding from the three Faults was dangerous  Sheep farmers were losing ground  The land was very dry  It was too difficult to travel the area during that time