Buyers representing seven Northern companies bought 114,334 acres in Arkansas between 1876 and 1888. The spinach and greens products allowed Alma to leverage its existing fruit canning facility owned by the Alma Canning and Evaporating Company, which had been in the area since 1888. Many had to seek public assistance. The conference will be on Feb. 15 from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. at the Conway County Fairgrounds, 901 E. Elm St. in Morrilton. After 1850, commercial agricultural in the Delta eclipsed subsistence farming. But World War II transformed agriculture, and in twenty-five years, machines turned what had been a lifestyle into a capitalistic endeavor. However, the Arkansas River Valley, as referred to by physiographers, "is not the alluvial valley through which the Arkansas River actually meanders. // alert(iFrameID.height); The 1930s were difficult for almost all Americans, but for Arkansas farmers, the Depression started with the Flood of 1927, a disastrous flood along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. [7] Since settlement, the River Valley had been a largely cashless society with significantly less reliance on slave labor compared to plantation agriculture areas like the Arkansas Delta and elsewhere in the Deep South. Agriculture in Arkansas. { Whayne, Jeannie M., ed. Congresss amending the Southern Homestead Act led to a wave of speculation as representatives of timber and railroad companies descended on the South to buy millions of acres from the public domain. You briefly mention free range of cattle in the nineteenth century in association with tenant/sharecropper farmers and say that beef cattle were often kept on free range prior to World War II, but I didnt notice any mention of free-range hogs in upland/GCP areas of Arkansas. Temperatures are generally warmer than in the Ozarks and cooler than Central Arkansas, although the wide variance in elevation in the River Valley can create locally different climatic conditions. The combination of increasing demand and rising prices for farm products, alternative job opportunities, and increasing use of technology changed the nature of farming in a generation. } Arkansas, 18001860: Remote and Restless. d = document.querySelectorAll('[id^=ptac-faq-answer]'); inner.style.display = "none"; According to industry records, the average herd size by 2020 was thirty-five head, and eighty percent of the approximately 24,000 cattle farms in the state had fewer than fifty head of livestock. Generally defined as the area between the Ozarkand Ouachita Mountains,[1]the River Valley is characterized by flat lowlands covered in fertile farmland and lakes periodically interrupted by high peaks. An exploration period for a new regional crop tested beans, legumes, and tomatoes before settling on mustard greens and spinach. The other crops produced in Arkansas in large quantities are soybeans, corn, cotton, grain sorghum, and wheat. The former Otero County commissioner and current chairman of the Arkansas Valley Conduit committee for the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District is passionate about agriculture being . function threecolClick(b) { The River Valley's first wineries date to the postbellum era, when they were founded to produce wine for the Swiss and German immigrants relocating to the area to work in coal mines. //alert(str); Related to that were the thousands of acres of farmland that lay fallow, some for the duration of the war, depriving individuals and the state government of income. Following the war, the Southern economy was in shambles, including Arkansas. productivity on these soils is often limited by their physical properties. In 1940, Delta counties cultivated only 153,000 acres of rice and 176,000 acres of soybeans, compared with 1.2 million acres of cotton; those figures changed dramatically in the next twenty years. "&z=" + (Math.round((new Date()).getTime() / 1000)).toString() + Major support provided through a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism. Unable to meet the competition offered by their east Arkansas neighbors, hill country farmers turned from grain and row crops to poultry, livestock, and timber. area were formed by deposition of the river, by landslides that moved to the foot Desha County, which had 26.9 percent of its acreage in cultivation in 1925, had 40.5 percent in 1940. Agriculture has a history going back 200 years and has always been important to the economics of the region. Mount Bethel Winery has been in operation for over 100 years, and offers a tasting, tour and gift shop for visitors. Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. Sunnyside: The Evolution of an American Plantation, 18401945. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 50 (Spring 1991): 529. Howard, James Edgar. the Environmental Protection Agency: Region 6 as part of a cooperative non-point source 1 Held annually in July, the festival offers peach pit spitting contest and a terrapin derby in addition to a parade and traditional food and craft vendors. The dead river channels were some of the first lands sought out by the white American cotton farmers arriving from the East in the 1820s. Other cities in the River Valley are mostly of county-level significance, gateways to nearby recreational sites or small rural settlements. It is the entire synclinorium, or trough, lying between the two well defined groups of mountains"; Arkansas Natural Area Plan (Little Rock: Arkansas Department of Planning, 1974), 13. Whayne, Jeannie M., and Willard B. Gatewood Jr., eds. The ARVAC Food Bank, located at 504 Union Street in Dardanelle, provides food for local churches, community food pantries, and soup kitchens. Over one half of the states farms are cattle farms. The increasing interconnectedness and globalization of the world's economy, especially since the mid-20th century, have had a dramatic impact upon the economy of Arkansas. The Alma Performing Arts Center is the largest and most popular performing arts venue in the River Valley. The Colorado communities could not afford to cover 100% of the costs, as initially required, so in 2009, the act was amended to include a 65% federal share and a 35% local cost share. var c = 0; Years of public debate and meetings led to a compromise in the 1970s that balanced agricultural and non-agricultural interests. In Van Buren, the King Opera House is a restored 1880s opera house, now holding various events throughout the year. // ]]> var c = document.querySelectorAll('[id^=answer]'); The lower Mississippi River Valley was a fertile homeland to Native Americans from about 9500 B.C. Encyclopedia of Arkansas The NWR offers a driving tour with interpretative signs. } else { Additional support provided by the Arkansas General Assembly. var inner = document.getElementById(test); { All Rights Reserved. Paisley, Clifton. That year also saw a precipitous drop in housing construction and a downturn in the forestry industry. test = "threecolblock" + test; Near Booneville, Blue Mountain Lake offers a variety of recreational opportunities. Game and fish enthusiasts and environmentalists worried that clearing for crops would despoil the region. Because it required less effort to cultivate, it became the first region to be dominated by the cotton monoculture. inner.style.visibility = 'hidden'; [CDATA[ Criticized by sportsmen and environmentalists for misusing the land, polluting streams, and altering habitat for wildlife, Arkansas farmers have increasingly lost debates on public policy issues involving their industry. The western portion of the River Valley (i.e., around Fort Smith) is situated near an area known as Tornado Alley in the central United States. { var d = document.querySelectorAll('#threecolaccord'); This started well before the Civil War and continued through the mid-twentieth century, and was widespreadvirtually every hill farmer of this period ear-notched hogs and turned them loose in the woods, gathered them up in the fall/early winter, and then butchered them. At six cents a pound, standard wages for first picking in 1930, a hard worker could make six to eighteen dollars a day. } The landlord-tenant sharecropping system quickly ran into economic problems. Wage contracts, adopted as a necessity in the 1866 crop year, quickly evolved to tenant and sharecropping contracts that allowed the underclass farm hands and the landowners to meet mutual needs. d = document.querySelectorAll('[id^=threecolblock]'); for (var i in d) { Ouachita Mountains, and the Arkansas River Valley. In relative terms, the new agriculturists were in no better economic position than their traditional forebears. children[y].innerHTML = "+"; It grew in such dense stands that early travelers from Memphis, Tennessee, to Little Rock (Pulaski County) often hired guides to get through it. Unjustified Expectations of Magic: Arkansas Agricultural Specialists, DDT, and 2,4-D. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 79 (Summer 2020): 89115. But the Red River valley sat higher and was not as subject to flooding, and the soil had a sandy loam rather than clay base. Before the war, cottons low tolerance for heavy, wet soil presented farmers a challenge in maneuvering their fields amid the forest and finding elevation high enough to avoid overflow. This equipment made it possible to bring new land into cultivation, ideal for rice and soybeans but not cotton. a++; C. Fred Williams The Arkansas River Valley is informally defined along county boundaries, including all of Logan and Sebastian counties and portions of Conway, Franklin, Johnson, Perry, Pope, and Yell counties. Soils in this By the mid-1980s, the states agricultural revolution was largely complete. else Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Town and Country: Race Relations in an Urban-Rural Context, Arkansas, 18651905. The Alma Spinach Festival held on the third weekend in April pays homage to Alma's reputation as "Spinach Capital of the World". Many other historical building blocks of the Arkansas . Due to its relatively strong position following the Civil War, the River Valley attracted new settlement throughout Reconstruction. In addition to the Arkansas Valley, many of the prime agricultural regions of the state are experiencing population growth-related . if(inner.style.display === "block") Get beekeeping, honey production, and class information. str = str.substring(14, str.length); For more than 150 years, agricultural practices had hardly changed. Public policy also influenced the shift from cotton to soybeans. test = "answer" + test; var test = "" + str; //alert(d[i].id); The primary source of floodwater for the Mississippi River is the Ohio River valley, including the Tennessee River basin. Populism in Arkansas. MA thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers (now Vanderbilt Universitys Peabody College), 1931. The lower course river supports agriculture, such as hay and vegetables, as well as in the high dry valley and the towns of Pueblo. Crop production in the Ozarks Plateaus and Ouachita Mountains is limited, mainly revolving around pasture lands. Featured trees, vines, shrubs and flowers. A typical hill country farm through most of the nineteenth century had about thirty acres in cultivationten acres of corn, five acres of cotton, and the rest in cereal grains, sometimes tobacco (particularly in the Ozarks), potatoes, and vegetables. [5], Hernando de Soto became the first European explorer to enter Arkansas in 1541. //alert(str); for (var i in d) { Divided into six regions, each with unique soils, the state presented a variety of choices. In Colorado's Arkansas River basin urban growth and harsh farming conditions have led to water transfers from agricultural to urban uses. Soils were shallow, the terrain usually sloped, and most of the nutrients leached out through centuries of erosion. Cotton had been the states bellwether crop, but by the end of the war, rice and soybeans appeared and quickly won a loyal following. var b = 0; Global Village Day at Heifer International, October. This report provides a summary of the groundwater monitoring efforts, current water levels, NRD protection and conservation programs, and water use reporting during the 2022 calendar year. } The cost of the war effort, loss of human capital, and Confederate currency losing value were serious issues for the South in addition to the destruction of property, infrastructure, and crops. The first time you log in to our catalog you will need to create an account. Many immigrants came to the River Valley searching for agricultural prosperity, particularly by farming cotton, which could fetch high prices at market and quickly turn a farm into a profitable enterprise. else Crapemyrtles, hydrangeas, hort glossary, and weed ID databases. Early Twentieth Century c.style.display = "none"; The Arkansas River Valley(usually shortened to River Valley) is a region in Arkansasdefined by the Arkansas Riverin the western part of the state. Grove, Jama McMurtery. Maintenance calendar, and best practices. } d[i].id = "threecolblock" + c; [CDATA[ Many parts of Arkansas had descended into lawlessness and violence between whitecapping groups (including the Ku Klux Klan), freedmen, Republicans, and unaffiliated bandits taking advantage of the chaos. Top commodities include broilers (chicken for meat), soybeans, rice, cotton, cattle and calves, and turkeys. } The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas. While not as severe as the Dust Bowl conditions of the mid-1930s, for Arkansas the droughts effects were still devastating. function iframeLoaded() { . For a time in the 1950s and 1960s, timber removal in the Delta became a full-time business. Vineyards and wineries around Altus have been in the same family for generations. To avoid or escape the credit-debt trap of single crop agriculture, and in keeping with the New South emphasis on diversification, some farmers turned to fruit and vegetable farming. The alluvial soils of the vast Arkansas and Mississippi river valleys are some of the most productive agricultural soils in the state. President Andrew Johnson signed the bill into law on June 21, 1866. // ]]> Between 1935when farms reached an all-time high of more than 235,000 unitsand 1995, the number dropped steadily before leveling off to just under 50,000 farms. Find tactics for healthy livestock and sound forages. Use virtual and real tools to improve critical calculations for farms and ranches. Opportunities for quick profits attracted a variety of new farmers and non-farm investors; many were unfamiliar and unconcerned with traditional cropping practices. Laws favorable to small-business development encouraged partnerships between poultry growers and processors and a redevelopment of land use. As historian Gilbert Fite noted, farmers became a new minority in many regions of the nation, and that was particularly true in eastern Arkansas. The . Moneyhon, Carl H. Arkansas and the New South, 18741929. This culture lives on today in the five vineyards still in operation. The numbers picked up over the next eight years. The building boom that began at the end of World War II and continued with the baby boom into the 1960s accelerated the need for lumber and its by-products. By the twenty-first century, about sixty percent of Arkansas farmers raised cattle. b++; One of his first actions was to introduce Santa Gertrudis cattle in the state, a breed specifically developed in south Texas to thrive in the regions hot weather and multiple pests. [15], The most populous city within the River Valley is Fort Smith, the principal city of the Fort Smith metropolitan area that also includes Van Buren and Alma. By the time the act could be implemented effectively, a new form of agricultural labor had taken shape. In total, Otto Nuttli reported more than 200 moderate to large aftershocks in the New Madrid region between December 16, 1811, and March 15, 1812: ten of these were greater than about 6.0; about one hundred were between M5.0 and 5.9; and eighty-nine were in the magnitude 4 range. inner.style.display = "none"; While the bank is not open to the public, ARVAC provides food to individuals and families based on the federally funded criteria of the CSFP and TEFAP Programs. Research-based connection to government and policy issues. Beef cattle became an increasing part of the rural scene in the counties west of Little Rock after World War II. These crops brought diversification to the Deltas agricultural practices that generations of spokesmen had only dreamed about. } Being an important source of protein, the bean was also viewed by some as a suitable alternative to meat products while being more compatible with existing ecosystems. Elkins, Francis Clark. In previous years, much of the timber had been cut for lumber, but after World War II, the normal practice was to push the downed trees into rows and burn them. The Blue Mountain Wildlife Demonstration Area is a bird-dog field training center of international renown. There was some fertile land along the many streams that drained the upland watershed, but these valleys were typically narrow and subject to flooding. Not knowing that the soil was untillable, the former hill farmers taught their neighbors a lesson about determination and will. Originally brought to southeast Arkansas to work on cotton plantations, a band of these aliens migrated to Washington County and established a self-sufficient community, in part by growing grapes. Black farmers were slow to sign up for the new lands and even slower to finalize their claims, for several reasons. Most ranchers did not engage in scientific breeding to improve herd quality, and a high percentage of their animals lived on open range. These home farms, established outside Little Rock, Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and Helena, provided a few African Americans with their first experience in managing their affairs. { Refinements in the torque converter and power shift transmission, when applied to a tractor equipped with cutting blades and tree pushers, allowed one man to clear more trees in a day than a family could in a lifetime using traditional means. Arkansas River Valley Research The Arkansas River has long sustained a belt of valuable agricultural production, an appealing rural lifestyle, and scenic vistas across Colorado's southern high plains. 2023 Encyclopedia of Arkansas. iFrameID.height = ""; } In Clarksville, the Johnson County Peach Festival is the longest-running festival in Arkansas. var children = document.querySelectorAll('.ptac-plus .ptac-sign'); Not only was their occupation gone, but also was the land that served as a source for food, fuel, and leisure. Costs of machines, land, and inputs had forced out all but the most skilled and daring farmers. The most obvious change came after 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation freed Arkansass 111,115 slaves. } For more information, contact 501-918-3025 orcalsfoundation@cals.org. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997. But even as late as 1876, when the original legislation was amended to allow for unrestricted access, there were only 26,395 original entries. These individuals claimed 2.3 million of the nine million acres set aside in 1866. } By settling on land that local farmers deemed undesirable or less desirable, newcomers contradicted the traditional land-holding pattern. Historically, however, most Arkansas farmers in the nineteenth century were not able to diversify and turned to political activism to try to improve their economic standing. The need for workers in wartime industries drained rural Arkansas of farm workers in the 1940s. // ]]> Pre-European Exploration, Prehistory through 1540, European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802, Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood, 1803 through 1860, Civil War through Reconstruction, 1861 through 1874, Post-Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, 1875 through 1900, Early Twentieth Century, 1901 through 1940, World War II through the Faubus Era, 1941 through 1967, Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform, 19682022, https://www.butlercenter.org/agriculture-in-arkansas/, Changing Climate and Changing Land (Grades 5-8). // ]]> str = str.substring(8, str.length); inner.style.display = "block"; The new agriculture could not have developed without significantly altering the areas two most significant featurestrees and wetlands. test = "ptac-faq-answer" + test; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. Extreme heat and humidity of the summer months and parasites such as ticks, mosquitoes, and screw worms presented serious challenges to cattle. [3] Much of what is known about these early societies has been uncovered by the Arkansas Archaeological Survey and the Arkansas Archaeological Society at Carden Bottoms in Yell County near the Arkansas and Petit Jean Rivers. THE ARKANSAS VALLEY SUPER DITCH - A LOCAL RESPONSE TO "BUY AND DRY" IN COLORADO WATER MARKETS Tyler G. McMahon1 and Mark Griffin Smith2 ABSTRACT: Across the West, water transfers generate controversy. Mount Magazine, Mount Nebo, and Petit Jean Mountain compose the Tri-Peaks Region, a further subdivision of the River Valley popular with hikers and outdoors enthusiasts. Washington, DC - The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and 340 national, regional, and state agriculture, food, and forestry stakeholder groups today sent a letter to congressional leadership urging House and Senate agriculture committee leaders to fund the Research Facilities Act in 2023 Farm Bill. Not only did these companies deny the state tax revenue by taking land off the market, they deprived the state of even more revenue by transporting resources out of state for processing. c = document.getElementById('ptac-faq-answer' + str); The Arkansas River Valley bisects the Ozarks and the Ouachitas and offered the best farmland in the upland region. The Second Great Emancipation: The Mechanical Cotton Picker, Black Migration, and How They Shaped the Modern South. Such farmers usually made enough from cotton to pay taxes and buy a few finished goods. Taylor, Orville. } Near Ozark, the Aux Arc Park offers boating access to the Arkansas River and RV sites. We proudly serve the area with a commitment to quality, affordability, and excellent customer service. Other Delta counties showed similar increases. Soybeans, the more versatile of the two, gained in popularity over rice. Living in small villages characterized by earthen burial mounds, these native peoples planted vegetables and grains by tilling with hand-held wooden tools. However, cattle raising changed dramatically after the mid-1950s when New York transplant Winthrop Rockefeller arrived in Arkansas. Petit Jean State Park hosts an annual Wildflower Weekend in April and a Rendezvous the weekend after Thanksgiving. This fighting apparently caused de Soto to turn the expedition back east, leaving the River Valley.[6]. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council. [10] These settlements received support from existing immigrant populations in Little Rock and Fort Smith, and groups of Protestant settlers also establishing settlements in the area. Equipping individuals to lead organizations, communities, and regions. Prehistory Near Clarksville, the Spadra Waterfront Marina offers RV camping, boat rentals, and guided trips along Spadra Creek. The boom peaked in 1982, when the average price in the state reached $1,095 per acre. inner.style.visibility = 'visible'; This page is not available in other languages. Beginning as a region populated by small, self-sufficient landowners, the state evolved through a plantation culture before the Civil War, to an era when tenant farming and sharecropping dominated from the Civil War to World War II, before yielding to technology and commercial enterprise. The Mississippi River alluvial soils of eastern Arkansas make up the Delta region of the state. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993. Concurrent with the growth in population, there has been increasing pressure on land and water resources. inner.style.opacity = '0'; Before 1840, the upland region dominated production. Typically, the cattle operations were on family farms. Negro Slavery in Arkansas. The Mississippian culture that supplanted the Woodland people kept some of their vegetables but added corn and became almost exclusively dependent upon this new grain for food. However, disease infested most orchards less than two decades after apple growing became commercially feasible. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993. The Arkansas River Valley bisects the Ozarks and the Ouachitas and offered the best farmland in the upland region. 107 talking about this. inner.style.opacity = '1'; Due to the climate, fertile soil and immigrants accustomed to wine with their meals, several wineries were established in the River Valley. } In terms of age from youngest to oldest, the aquifers of the Interior Highlands include: the Arkansas River Valley alluvial aquifer, the Ouachita Mountains aquifer, the Western Interior Plains confining system, the Springfield Plateau aquifer, and the Ozark aquifer. count = d.length; In recent years, Arkansas has averaged 600,000 acres of wheat and yields have averaged 58 bushels per acre. Whayne, Jeannie M.Creation of a Plantation System in the Arkansas Delta in the Twentieth Century. Agricultural History 66 (Winter 1992): 6384. Tractors, although making an appearance in the Delta soon after World War I, were at first impractical due to poor design, high cost, and the dominance of small-scale sharecropping and tenant farming in the state. Efforts to persuade Congress to adopt a federal farm bill to shore up prices failed when government officials argued such a bill would create larger surpluses and further complicate the problem. Graves, John William. It is one of six natural divisions of Arkansas.[2]. } // ]]> In the next fifteen years, twelve watershed districts were formed; eleven were in the Delta. Jammers Reunion in Adona, April. In the Pre-Colonial era, the River Valley was inhabited by Native American tribes, including Caddo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, Tunica, and Quapaw tribes. Flooding was frequent, and as the water rose out of the normal river channels, the principles of hydrology caused the heavier, coarser soil particles to fall to the bottom. Get tips for food, fitness, finance, and more! Rice and soybeans incorporated into this new order since the same harvester could be used for both crops with only limited modifications. Mechanical milking machines, new techniques in pasteurization, homogenization, and refrigerationcoupled with improved transportationbrought modernity to the industry. Typically, in a matter of several crop years, small farmers found themselves encircled by debt. d[i].id = "threecolheader" + b; Two major yard-sale events, Bargains Galore on Highway 64 and Big To Do on Highway 22, happen annually in the River Valley. //alert(count); Most small lumber companies were forced into merger or bankruptcy. The German community thrived with coal mining and railroad work driving the local economy. } document.getElementById("copyright-date").innerHTML = d.getFullYear(); The River Valley has generally mild winters and hot, humid summers. The CALS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization. [16] The city is an important economic, education and population center in the state. //alert(c.id); The rapid and extensive disappearance of the hardwoods in eastern Arkansas created controversy. After 1970, federal officials modified the program and took steps to limit the acreage being developed for agriculture. } Companies invested large sums of money in developing the infrastructure: harvesting, hauling, and milling. d[i].id = "ptac-faq-answer" + c; } The state operates four parks within the region: Lake Dardanelle State Park, Mount Magazine State Park, Mount Nebo State Park, and Petit Jean State Park. Most farming was done on hillsides, and even though many of the early immigrants staked out more than 100 acres for a homestead, their farming operations were usually far less. head.appendChild(css); This ill-conceived approach to water development, he argues, has resulted in social problems as well as abuse of the environment. The following month, the expedition fought with a tribe referred to as the Tula somewhere near Fort Smith.
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