Dozens of drainage districts across the state were created by the Legislature and local governments from 1907-27. During the period of Arkansas history known as the Big Cut, which lasted from the 1880s through the 1920s, Northern-owned companies came into Arkansas and harvested the virgin forests. In lowland areas, land was usually drained and then converted to row-crop agriculture.
Some of those drainage districts still exist. We think of east Arkansas when it comes to such districts, but there were similar entities in other areas.
On the trip down U.S. 67 that I wrote about earlier this month, I crossed Terre Noire Creek and what are known as the boat ditches between Arkadelphia and Gurdon. I often crossed these ditches as a boy growing up in southwest Arkansas and wondered how they got their name. I received my answer when Ron Deaton wrote an article in 2016 for the Arkansas Historical Quarterly.
Deaton, who graduated from Arkadelphia High School in 1962 and Ouachita Baptist University in 1966, worked for several members of Congress and President Jimmy Carter before retiring. In a letter to me, he described the Ross Drainage District as "one of the most successful drainage districts in the history of Arkansas in that the Ross governing structure is still in existence and operating while most others have ceased to exist as legal entities."
The state law creating the district was passed in 1917, and the canals were dug in 1919-22. The story of the Ross Drainage District serves as an example of what was happening across much of the state during that period.
"Such efforts were often led by local elites, especially more established planters and merchants seeking to protect their properties and crops from flooding," Deaton writes. "The controversy over drainage in Clark County began in 1908 when a plan was proposed for controlling flooding on Terre Noire Creek. Terre Noire is a French term that means black earth or black land. The creek's fertile floodplain had become an important site for cotton and grain production by the middle of the 19th century.
"Terre Noire traverses the entire county, generally flowing southeast. Its valley is thus a formidable watershed draining much of the land surface within Clark County, though the county itself is bounded on the east by the much larger Ouachita River and on the west by the Little Missouri River and its tributary, the Antoine River. All these streams originate in the Ouachita Mountains north of Clark County and have historically been prone to flooding."
The creek leaves the mountains and enters the Gulf Coastal Plain, where it becomes a slower, sometimes swampy stream. Farmers coveted the bottomlands for growing cotton, which would be shipped down the Ouachita, Red and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans.
Jesse Arendall Ross was born in Alabama in 1838. His family came to Clark County in 1846. Ross served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and was known as Major Ross after the war. He served two terms in the state Senate and was appointed in the 1890s by President Grover Cleveland as the registrar of federal lands for south Arkansas.
"Despite his military and public service positions, Ross remained primarily a planter and businessman," Deaton writes. "Like most who owned land or farmed in the Terre Noire Creek bottomlands, he experienced regular flooding of his crops and took actions to deal with the situation. ... By the end of the 19th century, steam engine dredges, often called steam shovels, came to be widely used for improving drainage by digging ditches and canals up and down rivers and their tributaries that could divert overflow. These early experiments with ditching and dredging for drainage would accelerate the development of Southern agriculture by opening wetlands for cultivation."
Arkansas' "ditching act" of 1902 gave counties the authority to create drainage districts for dredging. What would become the Ross Drainage District was formed by the county in 1908. It was opposed by two wealthy and well-connected Chicago attorneys who had become involved in land speculation in the area and had made large timberland acquisitions. Their interests clashed with those of the cotton planters.
Deaton writes of the "untapped natural resources of the South, especially timberlands" that were becoming more accessible due to the expansion of railroads.
"A major sawmill and lumber industry had emerged in Arkansas in the 1880s as railroads made it possible for speculators (including the railroads themselves) to reach previously inaccessible timberlands and ship out lumber," he writes. "Northern economic interests provided the necessary capital and economic expertise, which was often not otherwise available in the post-Civil War South."
The legal struggle played out for years. Planters convinced the Arkansas Legislature in 1917 to approve the district and name it in honor of Ross. Bonds to finance dredging and construction of canals on either side of Terre Noire Creek were sold in November 1918. A contract with J.S. Sternberg Co. of St. Louis called for removing 170 million cubic yards of earth. The dredged material was deposited to form levees.
The steam shovel was placed on a large boat that was floated downstream as work progressed. A second boat provided housing and cooking facilities for dredging crews. The canals thus became known as the boat ditches. The U.S. Geological Survey later would name them the North Boat Ditch and South Boat Ditch.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.