Robert Edward Lee Wilson (March 5, 1865 – September 27, 1933) was the creator and owner of Lee Wilson and Company, a group of large

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

s in

Mississippi County, Arkansas Mississippi County is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,685. There are two county seats, Blytheville and Osceola. The county is named for the Mississippi River which borders th ...

. Acquiring much of his father's former swamplands, Wilson formed a logging and farming business that would become one of the largest and most successful in the United States.

Personal History

Wilson was born to Josiah Wilson and Martha Parsons Wilson on a rural plantation in Mississippi County in 1865. Robert's father died without a proper will, so his heirs fought over estate after Josiah Wilson's death in 1870. Wilson went to court in 1878 to declare himself "

emancipated Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfran ...

" at the age of 17 so as to be able to lay a proper legal claim to a part of his father's estate. Besides his agricultural holdings, in 1908, Wilson founded a bank in Mississippi County. This bank helped his companies to weather the worst of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

Lee Wilson & Company

In 1882, Wilson started a lumber business with his father-in-law, the Wilson & Beall Lumber Company. As the company cleared the land of timber, it transitioned to an agricultural business. In 1904, Wilson founded Lee Wilson & Company to oversee the vast agricultural holding he had amassed. He employed the

sharecropping system Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

to operate thousands of acres of land in Mississippi County. Wilson founded many

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

s for his workers, including Armorel, Keiser,

Marie Marie may refer to the following. People Given name * Marie (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** List of people named Marie * Marie (Japanese given name) Surname * Jean Gabriel-Marie, French compo ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, and Wilson, and was one of the most influential Arkansans of his time. A period company brochure claims the Wilson & Company grounds to be the world's largest plantation. A proponent of President Roosevelt's

Agricultural Adjustment Administration The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part ...

, Wilson used his political connections to secure federal help for his cotton business during the Great Depression. In 1935, Lee Wilson & Company was the single largest recipient of Agricultural Adjustment Administration funds of any farming company or operation in America.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Robert E. Lee 1865 births 1933 deaths American city founders American planters Businesspeople from Arkansas People from Mississippi County, Arkansas