Clover Bend National Historic Site

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Aerial shot of the Clover Bend National Historic Site campus.
Photo courtesy Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association.

Clover Bend National Historic Site

State Highway 228

Lawrence County, AR

Website:  Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association

The Treasure:  The restored buildings at Clover Bend National Historic Site recall the idealism of the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration programs.

Background:  As the Depression worsened in the early 1930s, small-scale farmers—including sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and poor landowning farmers—were particularly hard hit. As banks foreclosed on properties, displaced farming families hit the road, facing very uncertain prospects. Established in 1935, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort of the New Deal to assist struggling farmers.

Logo of the
Farm Security Administration (FSA).

At various locations in the country, the FSA purchased farmland, divided the land into smaller farmsteads, then recruited tenant farmers to work the land with some government support. In many cases, the families signed leases and purchase contracts that would lead toward land ownership.

Through an FSA program, the federal government purchased approximately 5,000 acres of foreclosed plantation property at Clover Bend. The land on the east side of the Black River had been transformed into good crop-bearing plantation farmland in the mid-19th century. However, even before the Depression, much of the land had sunk bank into swamp water and overgrown thickets.

The FSA’s Clover Bend Resettlement Program was particularly successful because it leased its 86 farmsteads to local families who already understood how to farm the sandy yet moderately fertile soil. Most participating families received a house, a barn, an orchard, a poultry house, and assorted outbuildings. The price for the property averaged $8,000 with the families paying $200 per year toward the long-term purchase.

The Clover Bend farmers participated in a medical co-operative plan that assured doctor’s care and hospitalization. The central grist mill, a mowing machine, and other farm equipment were cooperatively owned and shared. The original community center building was converted into Clover Bend School in July 1939, with an initial enrollment of over 200 students. It remained the local school until its closure in 1983.

South side of the Clover Bend gym prior to restoration.

South side of the Clover Bend gym, following restoration.

Notes from the Editor:  John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath is dedicated to “Carol who willed it” and “Tom who lived it.” Carol was Steinbeck’s wife. Tom was Tom Collins, the first administrator of Weedpatch Camp, the most famous of the FSA camps, located south of Bakersfield, California. Collins worked as an advisor to Steinbeck during his writing of the book and as a technical advisor to John Ford when the book was filmed in 1940, as well as serving as the model for the character Jim Rawley in the book.

Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in
The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

In the movie of The Grapes of Wrath, our hero Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) meets with the Caretaker (the Collins-based character who manages the Farmworkers’ Wheat Patch Government Camp). Tom expresses amazement at the camp’s humane policies:

Tom:  You aimin’ to tell me the fellas that are runnin’ the camp are just fellas that are campin’ here?

Caretaker:  That’s the way it is.

...

Tom:  You got dances, too?

Caretaker:  They have the best dances in the county, every Saturday night.

Tom:  Who runs this place?

Caretaker:  Government.

Tom:  Why ain’t there more like it?

Caretaker:  You find out. I can’t.

In many ways, the lesser-known Clover Bend was a greater success than Weedpatch. Most of the families in the program quickly received deeds to their properties and they improved and beautified the local community. The school served as a proud center for the community for many years and remains fondly remembered by its graduates.

Congress greatly reduced the work of FSA as the United Statesentered World War II. Conservatives had always strongly objected to the level of government involvement in the FSA programs, most extremely comparing it to the collective agricultural policies of the Soviet Union. In 1946, the FSA was formally replaced by the new Farmers Home Administration, which had a much more limited focus of extending credit for agriculture and rural development.

Other Recommended Sites:  The Arkansas State University Museum in nearby Jonesboroexplores the history of Northeast Arkansas and the Mississippi River Delta region. Among the exhibits is a reconstruction of “Old Town Arkansas,” a tour of 13 shops and offices representative of the type of places you might have found in this area back in the period of 1880 to 1920.

Restored farmstead at Clover Bend National Historic Site.
Photo courtesy Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association.

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© 2012 Lee Price