Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88Between Turnrows • 19 Chapter 1 • In the Beginning... The low hills that form Crowley’s Ridge run like a long curved spine for 150 miles from Southeastern Missouri to near Helena, Arkansas where they tumble into the Mississippi River. “The Ridge,” as it’s known, roughly divides the alluvial flood- plain of Arkansas’ Mississippi Delta and forms a northern border for the flat Grand Prairie region of the state. Native Americans hunted abundant game in the seemingly endless hardwood forests and swamps that covered these lands, and farmed in the rich alluvial soils. The conquistador Hernando De Soto crossed the Mississippi into eastern Arkansas in 1541 and became the first European to view the majesty of the bottomlands. Three hundred years later, Arkansas Territory entered the Union as the 25th state and settlers poured into the region. Stout-hearted men drained the swamps and timbered the bottomland hardwoods, taming the wilderness for the production of “King Cotton.” In the early 20th Century, the matted roots of the Grand Prairie were broken by the plow when paddy rice farming was introduced to the region. As the “American Century” moved forward, mighty changes began to occur in these ancient lowlands. Machine power replaced mule-drawn implements, diesel engines replaced steam, and improved agricultural chemistry ended the backbreaking labor of “chopping” fields and the plague of the boll weevil. Great drainage projects were undertaken which controlled annual flooding from the area’s many rivers and lessened the specter of ruin. Soybeans began to replace cotton as federal policy lim- ited the number of acres that could be planted in the fiber. Rice production continued to increase, and by the 1970s Arkansas was consistently the largest rice-producing state in America. Herbie Ziegenhorn’s family was one of the first to farm rice commercially