Dyess Farms, Arkansas: The First Experiment with a New Kind of Rural Community

Excerpts: During the depression in 1934, and the first six months of 1935, a total of 43 State Rural Rehabilitation Corporations, under the direction of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, began to help families on or near relief to become permanently self-supporting. The Corporations loaned the families the funds they needed to get a new start in farming operations and helped them plan the most economical way of working their farm. The first and largest rural community developed under the FERA was Dyess Farms, located In Mississippi County, in the Delta area of north eastern Arkansas. Cotton as the dominant crop in this part of the country. In 1930, 90 percent of the farms depended almost solely on cotton for their income, and the fall in cotton prices plus the Nation-wide depression struck hard at a large number of Mississippi County farm families. Nine out of every ten farmers in Mississippi County were either tenants or sharecroppers.