Arkansas - Post World War One
Arkansas Events After WW1
Arkansas Becomes Modernized
Even before WWI, Harvey Couch began bringing telephone lines into Arkansas and eventually had 1,500 miles of line and provided service across four states. Later Couch decided to expand the electrical service throughout the state, and it provided power to all but 12 counties in Arkansas.
Black Gold Is Found in Arkansas
Near the small southern town of El Dorado, Arkansas Oil speculator Samuel T. Busey had been drilling just west of town when a huge geyser of oil shot high into the sky. This began an Oil boom in Arkansas. Towns like Smackover went from 131 residents to 25,000 when people heard that oil was found there. But production levels dropped from more than 58 million barrels to 12 million barrels at the end of the decade .
The Flood of 1972
The flood devastated animals people and properties in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and Louisiana. Of all the states hit by the flood, Arkansas received the most damage. Many counties were buried in water up to 30 feet deep. The Red Cross opened 50 camps to help fee, house, and cloth thousands of homeless people. But many of them caught diseases. In some areas it took months for water levels to drop so farmers could plant their crops. Hundreds of people left the state because of the condition of the land. The total losses for crop and property was more than $50 million.
The New Deal
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President, he introduced a plan called the "New Deal". The goal of the plan was to create specific agencies and government programs to help feed those without food, provide work for thee jobless, and build a healthy economy. Some of these programs were the FERA or The Federal Emergency Relief Administration which provided food and shelter for the neediest people, the CCC or The Civilian Conservation Corps which is credited to be one of the most successful New Deal programs, was designed to put unemployed men back to work doing various conservation projects, and the WPA or The Works Progress Administration, which brought jobs to the people by employing them to build dams, post offices, hospitals an many other buildings, Many of these programs brought hope, jobs, and relief to people in Arkansas and across the nation.
Sources
- Arkansas History Textbook