The Great Depression as it effected Miller County,Arkansas

Part 1

October 29, 1929 is a date which was strongly impressed on the memory of older Americans. The date came to be known as “Black Tuesday,” the day of an unprecedented crash in the stock market of the United States. It was this culminating event, along with other factors, which precipitated the longest and most severe depression of this century. Within a year, millions of Americans found themselves without jobs. Businesses failed and the country came to a standstill. At the bottom of the depression, 1931 and 1932, numerous banks failed. There were soup kitchens and bread lines in the large cities for those who had no other way to sustain themselves. Streams of destitute hitch hikers and hoboes were on the highways and railroads looking for any kind of work they could find.

In Doddridge, most people were farmers, and so food was not the greatest problem. No money was the greatest problem, and consequently, the clothing needs of many people became critical. Some children even went to school barefoot in winter. On the coldest days they had to stay at home. To relieve this situation, the Federal Government set up distribution centers so that surplus army clothing could be distributed to those in need. This brought considerable relief to many people.

By spring of 1932, the Miller County School System ran out of funds completely, and there was no alternative but to close all schools until the following September.

On June 16, 1933, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was enacted by Congress. Its purpose was (1) to deal with unfair business practices that were rampant nationwide, (2) to appropriate funds for public works. (3) to guarantee labor’s right to bargain collectively, (4) to plow under surplus crops and to destroy excessive livestock.

The destruction of crops and livestock seemed grossly wasteful and undesirable as a method for improving prices, but the farmers complied since they received compensation. Several hundred cattle were driven to a forest two and a half miles southwest of Doddridge and slaughtered with guns. The bodies of the animals were then dowsed with fuel oil and set ablaze. However, the oil didn’t last long enough to completely destroy the carcasses, and so within about a week, the stench from this carnage began to creep into Doddridge. There seemed to be nothing that could be done about this, and so the people simply lived with the situation for several weeks.

Two years after the creation of the NRA, the Supreme Court ruled it an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Executive Branch. Thus, the NRA was no more.

In 1935, President Roosevelt created a program called the Works Project Administration to provide useful public work for needy unemployed people. They were to build roads, bridges, airports, public utilities, and parks. Doddridge benefited greatly from this action, not only from the employment aspect, but also from the improvement of roads and the control of floods on Kelley Bayou which ran through Doddridge. Also, the annual mosquitoes and buffalo gnat infestation was greatly reduced by the clearing of this bayou and other waterways in Sulphur Township.

Another national project which was set up to assist youth between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one was called the Citizens Conservation Corps (CCC). The boys who joined the Corps were sent to the national forests to plant trees where the lumber industry or fire had denuded the land. Several young men from Sulphur Township chose to join this program, and consequently, they and their families benefited. At the same time something useful was being done for the national forests.

The Great Tomato Bust In the winter of 1931-32, the County Agricultural Agent and others conceived an idea that the farmers around Doddridge should try something different for a cash crop. After all, the bottom had dropped from the cotton market, and nothing was to be gained from planting cotton again. The idea was offered to the farmers to grow tomatoes for the national market. This had never been tried before in Sulphur Township The farmers became enthusiastic about this idea, and soon great preparations got underway. A man by the name of Tipton moved with his family to Doddridge from Louisiana, and being an expert on tomatoes, he was placed in charge of the project. Tipton was also a minister in the Church of Christ.

In early spring, Tipton and his sons prepared a huge hot bed (perhaps thousands of square feet) for sowing tomato seeds. He planned to grow thousands of seedlings (tiny plants) for distribution to the farmers to plant in their fields. He instructed everyone on soil preparation, insect control, and all matters pertaining to the growing of tomatoes for market. In the meantime, packing sheds were built in Texarkana to receive the forthcoming crop of tomatoes and to prepare them for shipment by the trainload to northern markets. The weather was ideal, the plants grew rapidly, and were soon ready for pruning. The pruning of tomatoes is a laborious hand process of snapping off excessive stems called “suckers.” Removing these stems causes the plants to be stronger and to produce better quality tomatoes. Pruning is not only a backbreaking job, but surprisingly, it is a nauseating job; nauseating because tomato plants give off a strong pungent odor which is pleasant in small amounts, but when breathed throughout a hot humid day it can cause spells of nausea.

Tomato cultivation takes an immense amount of hand labor, such as setting out, watering, hoeing, pruning, staking, and tying, controlling insects, gathering, and hauling. The farmers had not anticipated quite so many operations, which were far more than was ever required in the growing of cotton and corn.

Harvest time arrived and everyone had a huge tomato crop. In fact, the word “huge” would be inadequate to describe the quantity waiting to be harvested. The farmers began to haul the tomatoes to the packing sheds in Texarkana. The tomatoes were coming from everywhere. Never had so many been seen before. The price paid to farmers at first was probably around eighteen to twenty cents per pound. Fair enough. However, with such a bumper crop arriving daily, this price level couldn’t hold. The price began to drop almost daily: fifteen cents, twelve cents, ten cents, and the tomatoes kept coming in ever increasing quantities. The quantity was overwhelming. The packers were going day and night. The price began to tumble: eight cents, six cents. Farmers were severely worried now. Profits were gone, and now they would be fortunate to recover the costs of production.

When the price per pound reached three cents, nearly everyone stopped harvesting. It wasn’t worth the effort, nor the gasoline involved.

Meanwhile, at home, tomatoes were piling up. Families ate all they could. They ate tomatoes sliced, stewed, fried, broiled, and made into sauce. They also canned tomatoes, using every jar and can available. They even gave away all they could, but there were few takers; everybody else had tomatoes too.

It got to be a common joke, inviting one’s neighbor to come and get some fresh tomatoes, when the neighbor, himself, had tomatoes rotting in the fields.

In the final analysis, the tomato boom (or bust) had simply been too much of a good thing at the wrong time. There must have been a good tomato crop all over the United States at the same time. Some of the farmers might have broken even with their crops, money-wise; tomato-wise, they had “had a bait of it.” Consequently, tomatoes in such quantity have never been seen in the Doddridge area since that time. The farmers decided that cotton and corn would do, after all.