Editing Dyess, Arkansas (section)

===Establishment===

Dyess Colony was established in Mississippi County in 1934 as part of the [[New Deal]] efforts of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] to provide economic relief to destitute workers in the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]].<ref name = EOA>{{cite encyclopedia |last= Hendricks |first= Nancy |encyclopedia= [[Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture]] |title= Dyess (Mississippi County)|url= http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2397 |access-date= May 12, 2018 |date= November 17, 2017 |publisher= [[Butler Center for Arkansas Studies]]|location= Little Rock |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180414234009/http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2397|archive-date=April 14, 2018 |url-status= live}}</ref> The experiment was the largest such community-building experiment established by the federal government during these years.<ref name=Smith49>Fred C. Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen: Plain Folk, Roosevelt, Jesus, and Marx in the Great Depression South.'' Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2014; pg. 49.</ref>

The project was established by Mississippi politician and [[cotton]] planter William R. Dyess (1890–1936), director of the Arkansas Emergency Relief Administration, who initially sought the establishment of a self-supporting agricultural community housing 800 families upon unused [[Mississippi Delta]] farmland.<ref name=Smith50>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 50.</ref> Director Dyess established the entity remembered to history as "Dyess Colony" and as "Colonization Project No. 1", plans for which were submitted to chief of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) [[Harry Hopkins]] early in 1934.<ref name=Smith51>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 51.</ref> The project was approved by Hopkins in March 1934.<ref name=Smith51 />

Some {{convert|15144|acre|km2}} of unimproved land were purchased by Dyess for the colonization project at the cost of $9.05 per acre, with the parcel redeemed for the payment of unpaid back taxes in this amount.<ref name=Smith52>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 52.</ref> The site consisted primarily of swamp and cutover forest land, although containing deep topsoil deposited by the [[Mississippi River]], part of what was then the most productive cotton farming county in the entire United States.<ref name=Smith53>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 53.</ref>

The project's scope was immediately scaled back to 500 family parcels, with the participants to be recruited from Arkansas [[sharecropper]]s and tenant farmers from across the entire state.<ref>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pp. 50-51, 53.</ref> Thousands of applicants were carefully screened, and eligibility requirements included being an experienced farmer made destitute through no fault of his own and being an Arkansas resident "of good moral background" in good health, under the age of 50, and white.<ref name = EOA /><ref name = Pittman>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/40025484| issn = 0004-1823| volume = 29| issue = 4| pages = 320–321| last = Pittman| first = Dan W.| title = The Founding of Dyess Colony| journal = The Arkansas Historical Quarterly| date = 1970| jstor = 40025484}}</ref> Funds for the purchase of land were provided by FERA in the form of a grant to the Arkansas Emergency Relief Administration, which initially managed the project.<ref name=Smith57>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 57.</ref> Subsequently, a new entity was established known as Dyess Colony Inc., the stock of which was held in trust by the [[US Secretary of Agriculture]], and management and control passed over to the managing board of that company.<ref name=Smith55>Smith, ''Trouble in Goshen,'' pg. 55.</ref>

The main purpose of the town's administration was to give poor white families a chance to start over with land that they could work toward owning. The original township included 500 individually owned and operated farms which were 20 or 40 acres each.