Clearing the Land for Agriculture, Arkansas

Nan Snider describes what it was like in Buffalo Island in the early 1900s when it was a wild area full of timber. In order to get to the rich soil from underneath the wet swamps that would be ideal for agriculture, settlers had to work with the timber and railroad industries. 

This story is part of Buffalo Island Central EAST's online story map From Swamp to Farmland and exhibits at the Buffalo Island Museum, which both trace the the history of agriculture in the area.

Nan Snider (00:04): At one time, the Mississippi River ran on the west side of Crowley's Ridge. And so we're on the east side of Crowley's Ridge. And so it's very fertile in this area. And so they started cutting the timber more and then they had all these excesses of timber. Seeing that, the Keitch family brought a railroad line, the JLC&E railroad, Jonesboro, Lake City and Eastern railroad, out from Nettleton. And they came through Lake City, they came through Black Oak, and it came to Monette, and they had logging camps that would bring the logs in and they'd ship them out.

Nan Snider (00:40): Then they went on to Delfore, and they went on to Leachville. And then the railroad were really getting popular. They were coming from all directions. And there was a hub in Leachville. Lot of timber being shipped.

Nan Snider (00:51): But after they began to clear the land then, and get a lot of this timber out... It was just so massive. Virgin timber, just huge hardwood trees and such. After they got out, then the farming really started. They had sweet potatoes, and cabbages, and strawberries, and a lot of grain products because they ate and they lived off the land.

Nan Snider (01:10): And then the cotton, of course, being the king and coming from the Carolinas. So many people came in from the Carolinas. They wanted to start planting cotton. And so they did, and first they shipped it over to the St. Francis River, down river to Whitesburg and Memphis. Then they began to ship it by railroad and then they had cotton gins. So it really went on from there. Once they cleared that land, it was game then.

Asset ID: 2018.20.18
Themes: The Way We Worked, farming, farmers, agriculture, rivers, timber, industry, railroads, logging, trees, crops, cotton, resettlement, Mississippi River
Date recorded: 2018
Length of recording: 01:35 m
Related traveling exhibition: The Way We Worked
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Buffalo Island Central High School, EAST (Environmental and Spatial Technology, Inc.); Buffalo Island Museum, Arkansas
More information: https://museumonmainstreet.org/blog-node/storytelling-augmented-reality-rural-arkansas