At the request of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), Memphis District, Panamerican Consultants, Inc. (Panamerican) of Memphis, Tennessee performed a Phase I cultural resources survey of the Above, Luxora, Luxora, and Osceolo Relief Wells project area in Mississippi County, Arkansas, under Delivery order no. 0026, Contract no. W912EQ-06-D-0001. The project involves the installation of relief wells o the landward side of the levee. The project area consists of an area parallel to the existing levee berm toe and extends 200 ft (ft.: 60.96 meters [m]) landward. The project areas extends from Station 64/35+00 to Station 24/47+00. The total area investigated was approximately 960 acres 9ac.). A literature and records check at the Arkansas Archaeology Survey (AAS) in Fayette ville demonstrated that several previously recorded archaeological sites were located within and near the project area. Filed investigations were conducted from August 20 to 28, 2009 buy the author and three filed technicians. One portion of the ROW was not investigated, as it was under a large industrial complex that is presently under construction. During the survey, 17 previously recorded sites and 10 newly recorded archaeological sites (3MS885-3MS894) were identified. Seven 9n=7) of the previously recorded sites were known oly from General Land Office (GLO) maps; three of these are current farm operations, three are under the levee and/or town of Osceola, and the seventh (3MS258) was recorded as a surface and subsurface scatter of historic material during this study and recommended as not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (). Fourpreviouss sites have been destroyed by the construction of an industrial complex south of Osceola: they had been recommended as not eligible The five remaining previous sites, and all 10 of the new sites, are sparse historic scatters heavilyy disturbed by plowing and are recommended as not eligible for listingg on the NRHP. No additional archaeological work is recommended for the project area.

In Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South Jeannie Whayne employs the fascinating history of a powerful plantation owner in the Arkansas delta to recount the evolution of southern agriculture from the late nineteenth century through World War II. After his father’s death in 1870, Robert E. “Lee” Wilson inherited 400 acres of land in Mississippi County, Arkansas. Over his lifetime, he transformed that inheritance into a 50,000-acre lumber operation and cotton plantation. Early on, Wilson saw an opportunity in the swampy local terrain, which sold for as little as fifty cents an acre, to satisfy an expanding national market for Arkansas forest reserves. He also led the fundamental transformation of the landscape, involving the drainage of tens of thousands of acres of land, in order to create the vast agricultural empire he envisioned. A consummate manager, Wilson employed the tenancy and sharecropping system to his advantage while earning a reputation for fair treatment of laborers, a reputation—Whayne suggests—not entirely deserved. He cultivated a cadre of relatives and employees from whom he expected absolute devotion. Leveraging every asset during his life and often deeply in debt, Wilson saved his company from bankruptcy several times, leaving it to the next generation to successfully steer the business through the challenges of the 1930s and World War II. Delta Empire traces the transition from the labor-intensive sharecropping and tenancy system to the capital-intensive neo-plantations of the post–World War II era to the portfolio plantation model. Through Wilson’s story Whayne provides a compelling case study of strategic innovation and the changing economy of the South in the late nineteenth century.

A record of University life and work.

Arkansas: A Narrative History is a comprehensive history of the state that has been invaluable to students and the general public since its original publication. Four distinguished scholars cover prehistoric Arkansas, the colonial period, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and incorporate the newest historiography to bring the book up to date for 2012. A new chapter on Arkansas geography, new material on the civil rights movement and the struggle over integration, and an examination of the state’s transition from a colonial economic model to participation in the global political economy are included. Maps are also dramatically enhanced, and supplemental teaching materials are available. “No less than the first edition, this revision of Arkansas: A Narrative History is a compelling introduction for those who know little about the state and an insightful survey for others who wish to enrich their acquaintance with the Arkansas past.” —Ben Johnson, from the Foreword