Arkansas Delta

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The Arkansas Delta is one of the natural regions of the state of Arkansas. It runs along the eastern border of the state next to the Mississippi River. It is part of the Mississippi embayment, itself part of the Mississippi River alluvial plain. The flat plain is bisected by Crowley's Ridge, a narrow band of rolling hills rising from 250 to 500 feet above the plain and on which many of the major towns lie. The region shares geographic and cultural similarities with the Mississippi Delta region on the other side of the river in Mississippi.

The Arkansas Delta consists of the 15 counties of Arkansas, Chicot, Clay, Craighead, Crittenden, Cross, Desha, Drew, Greene, Lee, Mississippi, Monroe, Phillips, Poinsett, and St. Francis counties.^[1]

1 History
2 Today
3 Principal towns
4 Famous natives and residents
5 Higher education
6 Highways
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

Arkansas' recorded history is anchored in the region, with early settlers crossing the Mississippi and settling among the swamps and bayous of east Arkansas. Long before the arrival of settlers however, the region was home to Native Americans, with evidence of mound-building cultures dating back more than 12,000 years. During the Civil War times, the region was dominated by plantation economy. Many African Americans were brought over in the 1800s to work on the plantations. After the Civil War, the region was decimated by the Union and most people lived in extreme poverty with many turning to sharecropping and tenant farming as a way of life. The area was heavily affected by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

[edit] Today

The Arkansas Delta economy is still dominated by agriculture. The main cash crop is cotton and other crops include rice and soybeans.

The Delta has some of the lowest population densities in the American South, sometimes less than 1 person per square mile. Demographics have remained the same since the Civil War — the region still has a very large African American population and is stricken with extreme poverty. The region is also home to a rare section of the Ku Klux Klan called the Bayou Knights.

The Delta Cultural Center in Helena seeks to preserve and interpret the culture of the Arkansas Delta.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, which had not been sighted since 1944 and was believed to be extinct, was seen in a swamp in east Arkansas in 2005.