Robert E. Lee Wilson | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | September 27, 1933 | (aged 68)
Resting place | Wilson town square 35°34′7″N 90°2′33″W / 35.56861°N 90.04250°W |
Occupation(s) | Owner of Lee Wilson & Company, plantation owner, railroad builder, logger |
Years active | 1886–1933 |
Known for | Lee Wilson & Company |
Successor | Robert E. Lee Wilson, Jr. James H. Crain |
Board member of |
Arkansas State Highway Commission Arkansas State University |
Spouse | Elizabeth Beall |
Parent(s) | Josiah Wilson Martha Parsons Wilson |
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 plantations in Mississippi County, Arkansas. [1] 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.
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" at the age of 17 so as to be able to lay a proper legal claim to a part of his father's estate. [2]
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. [2]
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 to operate thousands of acres of land in Mississippi County. [2]
Wilson founded many company towns for his workers, including Armorel, Keiser, Marie, Victoria, and Wilson, and was one of the most influential Arkansans of his time. [3] A period company brochure claims the Wilson & Company grounds to be the world's largest plantation. [4]
A proponent of President Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 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. [2]