Editing Cotton Plant, Arkansas (section)

==History==
[[File:City of Cotton Plant.jpg|left|thumb|upright|The [[Cotton Plant Water Tower]] was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 2008.]]
In 1820, when settlers from neighboring states first came to the Cotton Plant area, it was covered in dense timber and [[cane (grass)|cane]]. As a small town began to take shape at the site of present-day Cotton Plant, those settlers initially named their community Richmond.<ref>{{ cite journal |title= Early Days around Cotton Plant |journal= Rivers and Roads and Points in Between | volume=1 | year= 1972 |page= 26 |issue= 1 |location=Augusta, Arkansas |publisher= Woodruff County Historical Society }}</ref>

William Lynch brought cotton seeds with him from [[Mississippi]] in 1846, and the new crop flourished. The community was forced to change its name to Cotton Plant since a community named [[Richmond, Arkansas|Richmond]] was already registered in [[Little River County, Arkansas|Little River County]]. On July 7, 1862, [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] units and Cotton Plant locals skirmished with the 1st and 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, Army of the Southwest for the Union, a last-ditch effort by the Confederates to stop [[Samuel Ryan Curtis|Samuel Curtis]]' march to [[Helena, Arkansas|Helena]]. The Confederates were soundly defeated, allowing Curtis and his army to eventually take Helena, resupply his army, and take [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] the following year.<ref>{{ cite web |last= Patrick |first= Jeffrey L. |title= Action at Hill's Plantation |url= http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=511 |date= October 22, 2009 |publisher= The Central Arkansas Library System |access-date= March 12, 2012 }}</ref>

A new line of the [[White and Black River Valley Railway#Batesville and Brinkley Railroad|Batesville and Brinkley Railroad]] charged the Cotton Plant economy when it was completed in 1881.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/brinkley.htm |title=Brinkley Car Works & Manufacturing Company|publisher=Mid-Continent|accessdate=October 6, 2022}}</ref>  Warehouses, cotton gins, and a cotton compress brought jobs to the city, and downtown Cotton Plant became a bustling cultural center for Woodruff County. In 1908, the newly completed [[Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad]] opened up the timber industry about Cotton Plant, bringing the Standard Stave and Hoop Mill, sawmills, woodworking factories, and a veneer plant in subsequent years. Hit hard by the [[Great Depression]], the [[Works Progress Administration]] was tasked with installing a water and sewer system in town in 1935. Residents celebrated with fireworks and parades upon the completion of the project.<ref>{{ cite journal |last= McGregor |first= Dale |title= Cotton Plant's First Real Water and Sewer System |journal= Rivers and Roads and Points in Between | volume= 9 | year= 1981 |pages= 2–5 |issue= 3 |location=Augusta, Arkansas |publisher= Woodruff County Historical Society }}</ref> The community was also impacted by [[World War II]], but boomed after the war, experiencing its most prosperous times in the 1950s.<ref>{{ cite web |last= Barnett |first= Paula Harmon |title= Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) |url= http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=2551 |date= November 15, 2011 |publisher= The Central Arkansas Library System |access-date= March 12, 2012 }}</ref>