Dairying also experienced dramatic changes in the postWorld War II period. } } Mount Bethel Winery has been in operation for over 100 years, and offers a tasting, tour and gift shop for visitors. (Division of Agriculture photo.) { Elsewhere in the county, cotton and timber had given way to strawberry, hay, and cattle. 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. Policymakers conceived this soil bank program as a way to reduce surpluses in cotton and other commodities. Other technologies aided farmers in altering the Delta landscape. Generally defined as the area between the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains,[1] the River Valley is characterized by flat lowlands covered in fertile farmland and lakes periodically interrupted by high peaks. Even those farmers who remained on the land faced greater uncertainty than ever before. 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. The Arkansas River Valley is among largest areas of Arkansas, which had a river covering it for many years. The River Valley contains a large quantity of protected areas, with broad diversity across the region and several different managing agencies. count = d.length; } Desha County, which had 26.9 percent of its acreage in cultivation in 1925, had 40.5 percent in 1940. However, World War II brought dramatic changes in the area of farm equipment. Tomatoesalso became a commercial success in the twentieth century, particularly in the southeastern regions of the state. The following month, the expedition fought with a tribe referred to as the Tula somewhere near Fort Smith. Crop production in the Ozarks Plateaus and Ouachita Mountains is limited, mainly revolving Vegetable crop production has a long history in the Arkansas Valley of Colorado. As historian Gilbert Fite noted, farmers became a new minority in many regions of the nation, and that was particularly true in eastern Arkansas. We proudly serve the area with a commitment to quality, affordability, and excellent customer service. if(iFrameID) { These former sharecroppers and tenant farmers were not the source of the new agriculture but rather were reflective of its change. "&z=" + (Math.round((new Date()).getTime() / 1000)).toString() + The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas. Again, farmers turned to activism. var b = 0; Almost 3,000 years ago, the Pre-Columbian Woodland people began growing food to supplement their hunters diet. Maintenance calendar, and best practices. b++; The need for workers in wartime industries drained rural Arkansas of farm workers in the 1940s. The Post Winery has been in the Post family for five generations. a++; Approximately 84 miles (135km) east, Russellville was the 16th largest city in Arkansas at the 2010 Census. 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. Public policy also influenced the shift from cotton to soybeans. inner.style.display = "none"; While the hog industry did not come close to approaching the cattle or poultry industry after WWII, it was a huge part of rural life for over 100 years. 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. var str = x.id; var c = 0; Cotton acreage continued to increase until 1955, but the growth was much smaller compared with that of rice and soybeans, and farmers focused on those crops. Arkansas/Oklahoma State Fair (at Fort Smith), SeptemberOctober, This page was last edited on 28 March 2023, at 10:13. [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. for (var i in d) { } inner.style.opacity = '0'; } //c.style.display = "none"; // ]]> Despite significant efforts by scientists in the University of Arkansass College of Agriculture to control disease and pests and to develop new varieties, apple producers have not been able to regain a significant share of the market from the Pacific Northwest. Less pronounced but still significant was the number of upland farmers hit by similar forces. The Arkansas River Valley bisects the Ozarks and the Ouachitas and offered the best farmland in the upland region. The Agricultural Wheel in Arkansas, 18821889. PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 1953. Rice, which had been grown commercially since the turn of the century, saw a rapid increase in acreage after the 1930s. 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. Crop production in the Ozarks Plateaus and Ouachita Mountains is limited, mainly revolving around pasture lands. In Clarksville, the Walton Fine Arts Center on the campus of the University of the Ozarks offers university theater, performers, and speakers to patrons. for (var e in c) { However, the railroad's prominence declined during the Great Depression, shrinking Altus's economy and population. var x = document.getElementById(b); While the state was fortunate to have two additional officesone in the Arkansas River Valley west of Little Rock and one in southwest Arkansas near the Red Riverall were far from the Delta and most of the public land. var x = document.getElementById(b); [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. The new agriculture could not have developed without significantly altering the areas two most significant featurestrees and wetlands. Whats wrong with my plants? In some ways, the Civil War had a major impact on Arkansas agriculture, but in others, little changed. Specialty crops including turfgrass, vegetables, fruits, and ornamentals. First held in 1963, Weinfest is one of the most popular festivals in the region.[18]. Near Ozark, the Aux Arc Park offers boating access to the Arkansas River and RV sites. World War II through the Modern Era } //alert(test); else //alert(iFrameID.height); The Bracero Program brought thousands of immigrants to the fields and orchards of the United States. c = document.getElementById('ptac-faq-answer' + str); inner.style.opacity = '0'; var a = 0; Moneyhon, Carl H. Arkansas and the New South, 18741929. Most wheat acres are double cropped, with soybeans following the wheat harvest. The remaining property was open range for livestock, was used for hunting or fishing, and was a source for firewood, wood for tool handles, roofing shingles, and other needs. d[i].id = "threecolheader" + b; The Blue Mountain Wildlife Demonstration Area is a bird-dog field training center of international renown. But by that time the Deltas 4.4 million acres in forestland had been reduced to 1.8 million acres and half of the original 7.7 million acres of swampland were in drainage districts. return Math.floor((1 + Math.random()) * 0x10000).toString(16).substring(1); While not as severe as the Dust Bowl conditions of the mid-1930s, for Arkansas the droughts effects were still devastating. To ensure that black farmers had the first opportunity to file, individuals taking up arms against the United States were denied access to public land until 1867. Graves, John William. } else { Position your business to compete for government contracts. The Jack Creek Recreation Area and Knopper's Ford Recreation Area offer well-known Arkansas swimming holes as well as hiking, camping and fishing. There was a correlation between clearing and drainage projects and an increase in soybean and rice production. 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. Beginning on the states western border, it ranges from twenty-five to thirty-five miles wide and extends almost 150 miles into the state. for (var i in d) { var b = 0; inner.style.display = "block"; ________. 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. These natural barriers confounded Americans for more than 100 years after the first farmers arrived in the 1820s. 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. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1990. The boom peaked in 1982, when the average price in the state reached $1,095 per acre. test = "threecolblock" + test; Hand tools and draft animals limited an average farmer to cultivating about four acres a day and made it difficult to accumulate wealth. University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The Second Great Emancipation: The Mechanical Cotton Picker, Black Migration, and How They Shaped the Modern South. function accordionClick(b) { var googleAccountID = "UA-39815896-1"; Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South. A relatively small percentage of the soils in the region were formed by the action for (var y in children) { The majority is grown in: Mississippi River Delta region of Eastern Arkansas [CDATA[ Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999. Beginning on the state's western border, it ranges from twenty-five to thirty-five miles wide and extends almost 150 miles into the state. Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact Kansas Department of Agriculture Home About Us Agency Information Secretary Mike Beam Kansas Agriculture Kansas Agricultural Statistics State Board of Agriculture From the Land of Kansas Human Resources Ag Growth Project Growth Strategy Strategic Growth Initiative Ag Summit 2022 Ag Summit 2021 Ag Summit 2020 var test = "" + str; The Greenwood Performing Arts Center has over 1,000 seats and is used for various performances in the city. iFrameID.height = ""; Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas, and serves as a regional hub for culture, health care and transportation. The numbers picked up over the next eight years. 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. 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. Coal mining was an important industry in the River Valley's early history. c.style.display = "none"; //alert(d.length); The first time you log in to our catalog you will need to create an account. More than ninety percent of the region was covered with trees, eighty percent of which were bottomland hardwoods. The mission of River Valley Horticultural Products, Inc. is to be the premier horticultural. Using money saved from wartime prosperity, farmers were poised in the postwar period to buy machinery and land to expand their operations. The tenant sharecroppers were frequently forced to borrow money to buy supplies and tools to farm and pledged their future crop for security. [15] In Russellville, the Arkansas River Valley Arts Center offers visual arts as well as art classes and infrequent performances. var GIF = "https://ssl.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&t=event" + As the war ended, federal army officers confiscated some of the abandoned land and used it to resettle former slaves. For ten years, the Southern Homestead Act was an experiment in public land reform, placing individuals using the land above the speculator. For a time in the 1950s and 1960s, timber removal in the Delta became a full-time business. The other vegetation was a rhizome grass the local population called cane. var test = "" + str; else The expedition traveled to Tanico, an important city somewhere in the River Valley, in September 1542. Near Clarksville, the Spadra Waterfront Marina offers RV camping, boat rentals, and guided trips along Spadra Creek. Fourche River Days in Perryville, April. return s4() + s4() + '-' + s4() + '-' + s4() + '-' + s4() + '-' + s4() + s4() + s4(); Near Booneville, Blue Mountain Lake offers a variety of recreational opportunities. } area were formed by deposition of the river, by landslides that moved to the foot 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. function s4() { The intrastate migration from the western hill counties to the eastern lowland counties interjected a work ethic that had been missing in the traditional plantation culture and its paternalistic social relationships. { Mountains, West Gulf Coastal Plain, and Mississippi River Alluvial Plain, Avian Influenza Biosecurity Best Practices, APEX Accelerator & Government Contracting, Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food & Life Sciences. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998. 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. The valley divides the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains with a width of forty square miles. This ill-conceived approach to water development, he argues, has resulted in social problems as well as abuse of the environment. var css = document.createElement('style'); The federal Farm Bill of 1956 instituted a new plan for cotton producers. Two major yard-sale events, Bargains Galore on Highway 64 and Big To Do on Highway 22, happen annually in the River Valley. [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. Creating an account gives you access to all these features. Years of public debate and meetings led to a compromise in the 1970s that balanced agricultural and non-agricultural interests. 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. 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). Whayne, Jeannie M.Creation of a Plantation System in the Arkansas Delta in the Twentieth Century. Agricultural History 66 (Winter 1992): 6384. var d = new Date(); Laws favorable to small-business development encouraged partnerships between poultry growers and processors and a redevelopment of land use. Game and fish enthusiasts and environmentalists worried that clearing for crops would despoil the region. 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. // Special thanks to the Department of Arkansas Heritage. Not knowing that the soil was untillable, the former hill farmers taught their neighbors a lesson about determination and will. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997. [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. One of the largest farming regions, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain (formed by the Arkansas, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers), stretches about 250 miles from Missouri to Louisiana. Juice grapes continued to be a viable industry into the 1980s before market forces put most of the growers out of business. 72201. C. Fred Williams Farmers provided land and labor while processors offered chickens, feed, and a contract to buy the products. Rainfall had typically been an ally for farmers, but from April 1930 to January 1931, measurable precipitation was far below average. But even modernization did not remove the risks. Visitors can buy wines, tour the winery and watch the production process. d[i].id = "threecolblock" + c; } 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. Jammers Reunion in Adona, April. //
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