Big business

One of the most successful businesses in Arkansas history was Lee Wilson & Company of Mississippi County. Established in 1885, the Wilson business survived for 125 years before it was sold in 2010. The history of the company, a story as convoluted as the nearby Mississippi River, is the subject of a new book by University of Arkansas historian Jeannie M. Whayne.

Last month the Arkansas Historical Association awarded its Ragsdale Prize to Whayne for Delta Empire, as the book is appropriately titled.

The story of the Wilson plantation is, at its most elemental, a tale of strong-willed men trying to build an economic empire on land that was far from cooperative. When Josiah Wilson, the west Tennessee farmer and businessman and progenitor of the Wilson clan, first set foot in Arkansas, it was to help rid Mississippi County of the thieves and outlaws who regularly harried shipping on the Mississippi River.

As Josiah ventured into Mississippi County, Arkansas Territory, for the first time during the summer of 1834, he probably saw no evidence of the prehistoric civilizations that had made their homes in northeastern Arkansas. Jeannie Whayne estimates that Mississippi County had more residents in 1541, when the Spaniard Hernando De Soto ravaged the area, than it had in 1900. While he might not have known about the prehistoric peoples of northeast Arkansas, Josiah Wilson undoubtedly knew that much of the area sunk during the great New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12. Draining those “sunk lands” would be an ongoing challenge to generations of Wilsons.

While his siblings scattered about Tennessee—and one went to Texas to fight in its revolution—josiah Wilson moved to Mississippi County in 1846, wisely settling on some of the higher land in the area. His wife died by 1850, leaving Josiah with two daughters. Within two years, Josiah entered into a long term-relationship with Martha Parson, though he did not marry her until after all their four children were born.

Within four years of his arrival in Arkansas, Josiah had amassed 900 acres of land, owned 21 slaves, and had property worth $5,000, amounts he doubled over the next 10 years. All of this was put in jeopardy during the Civil War, though Josiah was able to hold his plantation together.

During the final months of the Civil War, Josiah and Martha had a son whom they named Robert E. Lee Wilson. This son was destined to build on his father’s work and create what would become known as Lee Wilson & Company.

The 5-year-old Lee Wilson was left in a rather precarious state when his father died intestate in 1870, and his half-sister, Viola, challenged the legal standing of her half-siblings. In 1878, Martha Wilson died, leaving Lee an orphan at age 13. Two years later, Lee left school and moved to Mississippi County, and two years after that, he successfully petitioned to end his uncle’s legal guardianship. At age 17, Lee Wilson was intent on building his own future.

Full of energy and instinctively realizing the possibilities of the forested lands of northeastern Arkansas, Lee boldly pursued a dual approach—farming cotton while simultaneously developing his growing timber resources. Hence, from the start Lee Wilson was diversified. After marrying at age 20, Lee and his new father-in-law established a sawmill and incorporated Lee Wilson & Company in 1886. For the next half-century Lee Wilson dedicated his life to building his business, acquiring 50,000 acres of valuable timber and crop lands.

At one time or another, the company produced vast amounts of lumber, cotton, corn, alfalfa, soybeans, rice, and beef and pork. The company processed its own pork fat into lard and sold it in the numerous company stores dotting Mississippi County. The company owned banks, too. Indeed, the company created its own town, Wilson, Arkansas—which was company-owned until the 1950s.

Lee Wilson’s nimbleness extended to using governments at all levels as partners. Almost from the beginning, Wilson’s businesses were heavily leveraged. He certainly welcomed government loans, including a large Reconstruction Finance Corp. loan during the Herbert Hoover administration. During World War II, long after Lee Wilson’s death, his company sold huge amounts of food to government agencies.

Wilson, along with other large landowners, also used governmental authority to create drainage and levee districts. While Wilson usually got his way, on more than one occasion small landowners dynamited levees protecting large farms.

During his life, Lee Wilson was popularly viewed as being liberal on race relations. He built a school for the children of his black tenants, and when racist whites burned it, Wilson built it back with fireproof bricks. Nor did Wilson allow outsiders to harass “his” blacks. Today, Wilson is seen more ambivalently on race, his actions often decried as paternalistic and rooted in economic self-interest.

Upon Lee Wilson’s death in 1933, it was discovered that he had a mistress living in a lake house in Hot Springs and, shockingly, had modified his will to provide for her. The Lee Wilson Company survived that scandal, along with the Great Depression, the economic changes of the New Deal, world wars, the mechanization of agriculture, and international competition.

In December of 2010, the Lawrence family interests of Missouri and Tennessee bought the company for an estimated $150 million.