For a time in the 1950s and 1960s, timber removal in the Delta became a full-time business. } str = str.substring(8, str.length); 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. For additional information: Cotton, the crop most identified with the Delta, did not appear until after the United States acquired the region with the Louisiana Purchase. World War II transformed Arkansas agriculture. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999. var iFrameID = document.getElementById('idIframe'); PDF Arkansas Department of Agriculture FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 6/3/2021 The Klan had limited support, and much of the area was viewed steadily Re 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. Companies invested large sums of money in developing the infrastructure: harvesting, hauling, and milling. The boom peaked in 1982, when the average price in the state reached $1,095 per acre. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. 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. Our programs include aquaculture, diagnostics, and energy conservation. var test = "" + str; Most farmers were willing to make long-term commitments to these crops even though it meant acquiring new equipment. In the southern part of Arkansas we find Coastal Plain soils, which are marine deposits Desha County, which had 26.9 percent of its acreage in cultivation in 1925, had 40.5 percent in 1940. In 1945, about 4.5 acres of cotton were planted for each acre of soybeans; by 1955, acreage of the two crops was almost equal, and by 1960, there were more than six acres of soybeans per acre of cotton. When state and private charities failed to meet the need, federal officials established a Drought Committee to review conditions and provide low-interest loans for farmers to use in buying farm supplies and forage for livestock. The Agricultural Wheel in Arkansas, 18821889. PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 1953. for (var y in children) { Populism in Arkansas. MA thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers (now Vanderbilt Universitys Peabody College), 1931. High prices and the availability of newly developed land led to a boom in Delta agriculture in the 1970s. In all, 27 design . } This one-page handout, from the Horticulture Track of the Oklahoma Beginning Farmer and Rancher Program, lists, for over four dozen vegetable crops: direct seed vs. transplant, days from indoor to field planting, first and last indoor and field dates, and germination temperature range and optimum. var test = "" + str; DeMaris, Ralph, and Robert Irving. inner.style.display = "block"; [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. 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. inner.style.opacity = '0'; Opportunities for quick profits attracted a variety of new farmers and non-farm investors; many were unfamiliar and unconcerned with traditional cropping practices. 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. Cotton became the dominant crop as white Americans discovered that the alluvial soil typically produced about fifty percent more cotton than the states average pounds per acre, and Delta raw cotton regularly sold above market price at the Memphis cotton exchange. } "&ec=print&tid=" + googleAccountID + "&cid=" + guid() + The lower Mississippi River Valley was a fertile homeland to Native Americans from about 9500 B.C. Ozark Lake, formed on the Arkansas River southwest of Mulberry, is surrounded by a WMA, The United States Forest Service operates both the Ouachita National Forest and the Ozark National Forest within the region, offering trails, camping, and fishing over thousands of acres of public land. A crop lost to floods often offset soil fertility. Whayne, Jeannie M., ed. The 6 Natural Regions of Arkansas - WorldAtlas From 1948 to 1964, Mexican day laborers filled a vital need for field hands in the Delta. Colorado River water plan could trigger unprecedented supply cuts { var x = document.getElementById(b); Crop production in the Ozarks Plateaus and Ouachita Mountains is limited, mainly revolving inner.style.opacity = '1'; Greenwood also has a Coal Miner's Memorial near the town square, with a restored coal railroad car and names of Sebastian County coal workers engraved on site. // ]]> Populations of Austrian Catholics, German Catholics, and German Catholics and Lutherans were relocating to the River Valley. Rice, too, because of its greater economic return, found increasing favor in the Delta. 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. By the 1970s, Arkansas consistently led the nation in rice production. Soil quality and its use here in Arkansas. //alert(str); var c = 0; The Jack Creek Recreation Area and Knopper's Ford Recreation Area offer well-known Arkansas swimming holes as well as hiking, camping and fishing. PDF Arkansas River Valley - agriculture.arkansas.gov } 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. var inner = document.getElementById(test); A final public policy issue that contributed to the agricultural revolution in east Arkansas had to do with labor relations. var c = 0; 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. [12] River Valley soil and climate are much less conducive to cotton cultivation than the Arkansas Delta, and many settlers struggled. for (var i = 0; i < count; i++) { The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, and cooperators printed a soil associa-tion map in 1959 (revised, 1967, and currently being revised again) which divided the state into 12 "areas" defined by soils and physiography. Part of this change was a reflection of market conditions, but more significant was that soybeans were better adapted to Delta soilparticularly the newly cleared timberlands along the swamps and bayous. The bill initially limited public land access to homesteaders and limited individual claims to eighty acres, rather than the 160 acres in the original 1862 bill. 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. { } Game and fish enthusiasts and environmentalists worried that clearing for crops would despoil the region. } Heavily capitalized, with access to thousands, sometime millions, of dollars, these farmers were products of an agribusiness system. Because of funding shortfalls, the Arkansas Valley Conduit was never built after it was authorized in 1962. Some moved out of state; others gave up farming and relocated to the larger towns in their region. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1990. Whayne, Jeannie M., and Willard B. Gatewood Jr., eds. test = "ptac-faq-answer" + test; Project envisions rise of specialty crops in Arkansas Delta, River Valley 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. Formed by erosion from the upland regions, the Coastal Plain was characterized by shallow soils that were excellent for growing loblolly pine trees but had limited use for traditional row crops. 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. children[y].innerHTML = "+"; [CDATA[ // ]]> Farming in these regions was also a challenge. d[i].id = "ptac-faq" + a; As late as 1940, more than half of the Delta was undeveloped. Position your business to compete for government contracts. var d = document.querySelectorAll('#threecolaccord'); } else { Feed & Fertilizer DivisionArkansas State Plant Board, // Unclear waters: How pollution, diversions and drought are squeezing the { Visitors can buy wines, tour the winery and watch the production process. The significance of the changes lay in the speed in which they occurred. But even modernization did not remove the risks. var children = document.querySelectorAll('.ptac-plus .ptac-sign'); In Colorado's Arkansas River basin urban growth and harsh farming conditions have led to water transfers from agricultural to urban uses. Our High-Quality Equipment New Tractors and Farming Equipment The most obvious change came after 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation freed Arkansass 111,115 slaves. From 1940 to 1978, about 2.5 million acres of forest were cleared and most of that land was brought into cultivation. //alert(str); Vegetable crop production has a long and successful history in the Arkansas Valley of Colorado. for (var i in d) { //alert(c.id); { 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 Wiederkehr Weinfest in Wiederkehr Village, a winery founded by Johann Andreas Wiederkehr, is a free harvest festival held annually in October, including wine tasting, vineyard tours, music, polka dancing, traditional German cuisine and other festival entertainment. 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. Mount Magazine hosts an annual International Butterfly Festival in June, Frontier Days in October, and is the final destination on the Peak to Peak Poker Run, which begins at Queen Wilhelmina State Park in May. { Greater investments meant higher risks, and between 1985 and 1995, more than 11,000 farmers left the Delta, victims of debt, low prices, and bankruptcy. The expedition traveled to Tanico, an important city somewhere in the River Valley, in September 1542. West and north of the Mississippi River floodplain lay the Ouachita Mountains and the Ozark uplift. Arkansas River Valley Local Real Estate Guide Arkansas Valley in Colorado was established between the 1700s and early 1800s when hunters, trappers, and traders of European descent came to the region. inner.style.visibility = 'visible'; [7] Although no River Valley counties were initially subject to the proclamation, Clayton added four more counties, including one partial-River Valley county, Conway County. count = d.length; Between the Mississippi and Red River floodplains lay the West Gulf Coastal Plain. There was some fertile land along the many streams that drained the upland watershed, but these valleys were typically narrow and subject to flooding. Little Rock, AR. As the demographic shifts occurred, rural Arkansas developed pockets of settlement occupied by people without land and dependent on a day wage. South of Dardanelle, the Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge protects over 7,000 acres (2,800ha) of bottomland and wetland surrounded by a cutoff meander of the Arkansas River. An unanticipated argument for growing soybeans came in the early 1960s when the environmental movement began calling attention to the impact pesticides and herbicides were having on plant and animal life. Get beekeeping, honey production, and class information. Not only was their occupation gone, but also was the land that served as a source for food, fuel, and leisure. document.getElementById("copyright-date").innerHTML = d.getFullYear(); Town and Country: Race Relations in an Urban-Rural Context, Arkansas, 18651905. But 10 years later . It had oxbow lakes, swamps, and dense undergrowth that presented a challenge to early farmers. inner.style.display = "none"; Despite repeated efforts since 1948 at both state and federal levels to adopt a water use policy, little progress has been made. Conditions improved for two decades, and farmers realized a prosperity unmatched in American agriculture. else For ten years, the Southern Homestead Act was an experiment in public land reform, placing individuals using the land above the speculator. Mining became prominent by 1873, especially around the Altus area. Most small lumber companies were forced into merger or bankruptcy. Cotton prices and farm income reached their lowest postCivil War levels in 1899. Find tactics for healthy livestock and sound forages. The German community thrived with coal mining and railroad work driving the local economy. // ]]> Coal mining was an important industry in the River Valley's early history. 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. 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. [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. })(); } [14] Today, the Altus Area Coal Miner's Memorial is a series of five sculptures paying homage to area coal miners, with the names of over 2,500 local miners engraved at the site. var GIF = "https://ssl.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&t=event" + World War II through the Modern Era The Arkansas River Valley is the area carved by the river long ago. The drought of 193031 became almost as legendary as the flood. C. Fred Williams Trapped in stagnant pools, these waters formed backwater swamps, and the finer particles coalesced into clay. To some extent, it worked, but a more significant outgrowth of the policy was the acceleration of soybean production. In Van Buren, the King Opera House is a restored 1880s opera house, now holding various events throughout the year. The states climate did not favor the beef industry. slopes, and by the weathering of the existent parent material. The Alma Performing Arts Center is the largest and most popular performing arts venue in the River Valley. Dangerous and demanding, the industry attracted Swiss and German immigrants who were unable to establish productive farms. The area is approximately 29,000 square miles (19 million acres) and includes parts of the States of Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In recent years, acreage has averaged 600,000 acres and yields have averaged 58 bushels per acre. By the time the act could be implemented effectively, a new form of agricultural labor had taken shape. //c.style.display = "none"; Get the latest research results from our county agents. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System. Nuttli also noted that about eighteen hundred earthquakes of . to 1670 A.D. Find educational resources and get youth engaged in agriculture. The majority of the wheat is grown in: Mississippi River Delta region in Eastern Arkansas Arkansas River Valley region of Western Arkansas Eight projects by students and faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design were recently recognized in the 2023 Central States Awards program by the Central States region of the American Society of Landscape Architects. At six cents a pound, standard wages for first picking in 1930, a hard worker could make six to eighteen dollars a day. Over the past two million years, rivers carried soil particles from the upper Midwest and cut through thick loess deposits in the lower Mississippi River Valley. But even then the plantation cotton-slave culture exceeded the self-sufficient hill farmers only in the dollar value of their investments in chattel and land. Apples were the crop of choice for landowners in the northwest hill counties, particularly after the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad extended east from Eureka Springs (Carroll County) in the 1890s and allowed growers to ship to outside markets. Just as rural Arkansans were adjusting to their losses from the flood and the timber industry changes, another natural disaster struck. d[i].id = "threecolheader" + b; 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. The valley divides the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains with a width of forty square miles. for (var i in d) { Global Village Day at Heifer International, October. Arkansas was second only to Florida in acres still in the public domain and offered an opportunity for thousands of Arkansans, black and white, to own farms free of charge. By 1964, the statistical importance of tenant-sharecroppers, and the number of horses and mules, had been reduced to the point that federal officials no longer collected data on them. Equipping individuals to lead organizations, communities, and regions. var googleAccountID = "UA-39815896-1"; 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. Growing urbanization in the twentieth century, changes in technology, and knowledge about transmitting disease through raw milk brought many changes to the dairy industry. ________. var x = document.getElementById(b); The MAP area constitutes the third largest area of irrigated cropland in the United States. Also originating in the northwest counties, the industry came to be concentrated in a narrow district between the Little Red and White rivers in the north central region of the state. His expedition of 600 Spanish explorers searching for gold and riches crossed into Arkansas across the Mississippi River, and explored the state for the next two years. count = d.length; Arkansas is a top-ten producer of soft red winter wheat in the United States. // The Colorado River provides water for over 40 million Americans and 30 Tribal Nations, fuels hydropower resources in eight states and supports agriculture across the region. This culture lives on today in the five vineyards still in operation. Not knowing that the soil was untillable, the former hill farmers taught their neighbors a lesson about determination and will. The rushing floodwaters also changed course frequently, carving new channels and leaving the old river behind as oxbow lakes and bayous. The numbers picked up over the next eight years. Rice, which had been grown commercially since the turn of the century, saw a rapid increase in acreage after the 1930s. children[y].innerHTML = "+"; 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. But lofty though its goals, and as well intentioned as its sponsors may have been to help the Southern underclass, it was not a panacea. Taylor, Orville. For two very different reasons, viniculture also developed in the state in the late nineteenth century. for (var i in d) { Using money saved from wartime prosperity, farmers were poised in the postwar period to buy machinery and land to expand their operations.