But fewer than half (12,680) of the original claimants lived on their homesteads long enough to make a final entry. In the Pre-Colonial era, the River Valley was inhabited by Native American tribes, including Caddo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, Tunica, and Quapaw tribes. //alert(str); North of Clarksville, Lake Ludwig offers swimming, boating and fishing to visitors. //alert(c.id); The Central Collegiate Institute was established in Altus in 1876 (now known as Hendrix College in Conway) and Hiram and Lydia College in 1890 (which went defunct in 1906). The flooding also helped shape two distinct Delta subregions. Seed Starting Guide - Arkansas River Valley - Kerr Center } In response to the former slaves need for land, Congress adopted two programs designed to make individual land ownership a priority. The Mississippi River alluvial soils of eastern Arkansas make up the Delta region of the state. Crop production in the Ozarks Plateaus and Ouachita Mountains is limited, mainly revolving Throughout the nineteenth century, landowners concentrated on draft animals, horses, mules, and oxen, with only a passing interest in dairy or beef animals. Indicative of the disarray, Radical Republican Governor Powell Clayton declared martial law in ten counties following reelection in 1868. 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. [11] Several of the River Valley's small towns were founded by these groups, beginning as small clusters of immigrants and evolving into cohesive communities. Typically, in a matter of several crop years, small farmers found themselves encircled by debt. The need for workers in wartime industries drained rural Arkansas of farm workers in the 1940s. By the twenty-first century, about sixty percent of Arkansas farmers raised cattle. a++; Once thought to be unique to the Grand Prairie, success came for rice farmers in the new drainage districts. Coal mining was an important industry in the River Valley's early history. The devastating Mississippi River flood of 1927 has deservedly entered the realm of legend and lore, being one of the most costly natural disasters in American history. c++; inner.style.visibility = 'hidden'; Welcome to Price AG, your leading tractor dealership in the Arkansas River Valley. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993. (Division of Agriculture photo.) var c = 0; Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996. var str = x.id; This page is not available in other languages. However, the railroad's prominence declined during the Great Depression, shrinking Altus's economy and population. The other crops produced in Arkansas in large quantities are soybeans, corn, cotton, grain sorghum, and wheat. Aquifers of ArkansasProtection, Management, and Hydrologic - USGS The Bracero Program brought thousands of immigrants to the fields and orchards of the United States. [CDATA[ Additional support provided by the Arkansas Community Foundation. The Museum of Automobiles atop Petit Jean Mountain hosts annual Antique Auto Show and Swap Meet events in June and September. Many farmers applied chicken manure to reenergize pastureland for livestock. var d = document.querySelectorAll('#threecolaccord'); Top commodities include broilers (chicken for meat), soybeans, rice, cotton, cattle and calves, and turkeys. It is one of six natural divisions of Arkansas.[2]. Research-based connection to government and policy issues. Agriculture has played a major role in Arkansass culture from territorial times, when farmers made up more than ninety percent of the population, through the present (about forty-five percent of the states residents were still classified as rural in the early part of the twenty-first century). 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. [9] The Lutherans generally immigrated in organized companies, where the Catholics came independently, although some Catholic settlements like Clarksville and Subiaco were founded by organized groups. For most, having spent their lives close to the soil working crops and livestock with a limited selection of tools, continuing in agriculture was expected. Trapped in stagnant pools, these waters formed backwater swamps, and the finer particles coalesced into clay. The eleven flood-control projects resulted in more than 400 miles of stream channelization and brought 4.7 million acres into drainage districts. The boom peaked in 1982, when the average price in the state reached $1,095 per acre. { var inner = document.getElementById(test); In recent years, acreage has averaged 600,000 acres and yields have averaged 58 bushels per acre. inner.style.visibility = 'hidden'; Summary of 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Sequence Completed - USGS inner.style.opacity = '1'; An Overview of Arkansas Agriculture - Farm Flavor var css = document.createElement('style'); Unjustified Expectations of Magic: Arkansas Agricultural Specialists, DDT, and 2,4-D. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 79 (Summer 2020): 89115. 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. Companies invested large sums of money in developing the infrastructure: harvesting, hauling, and milling. In the decade before the Civil War, the regions population increased more than 100 percent, and the slave population grew more than 120 percent. Bradley County earned the reputation as the tomato capital of the state, and selective breeding by crop scientists at the University of Arkansass College of Agriculture kept tomato growers in a competitive position in the twenty-first century. In Colorado's Arkansas River basin urban growth and harsh farming conditions have led to water transfers from agricultural to urban uses. But in 1927, lumber prices began a rapid decline that continued for more than five years. } Originally valued for its cotton land, by the time of the Civil War, the region had the states most diverse agriculture. 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. Over one half of the states farms are cattle farms. return Math.floor((1 + Math.random()) * 0x10000).toString(16).substring(1); In addition to the credit crunch, farmers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century faced a steady decline in crop prices.

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arkansas river valley agriculture