Pickens

The small community of Pickens sits deep in the Arkansas Delta. The town was built around an old plantation, which grew to contain over 14,000 acres in the 1890s. Although the plantation no longer exists, the area is still dedicated to agriculture. An old cotton gin here looks like it's still being used for something (I didn't want to bother anyone there to see what for).





The old plantation mercantile store still exists, and has been turned into a popular restaurant. I was in Pickens at lunch time and the parking lot was full. Across the street from the restaurant is the old Pickens House, which was built in the 1940s by the Pickens family to replace the original plantation house. It has been been left vacant for a few years, and is in a state of disrepair. Earlier this year, Preserve Arkansas listed it as one of the state's most endangered historic properties.



Just a short drive away is this old sharecroppers house. Mechanization ended the sharecropping system, and houses like this were left abandoned after there was no longer any need for people to live by the farmland. Nowadays you don't see too many of these houses left standing. This one looks like it had been used for storage.