Unfortunately for those who chose to attempt to farm new lands in such places as Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Eastern Colorado, the unusually rainy years of the early 1880s which had buoyed land prices gave way to a protracted drought beginning in the summer of 1887, bringing an end to the giddy, speculative boom. With crops failing artificially inflated land prices plummeted; Eastern capital began to withdraw from the region. Banks collapsed and credit dried up. A decade of hard times followed, marked by the abandonment of entire communities. A sense of deep discontent with the current state of affairs was felt by the farmers who remained.