1900s, Photo Search
Ferdinand Tonney (left) of Swifton produced a cotton crop in 1908 valued at $2 million. The field pictured here produced cotton worth $90 per acre. The Swifton farmer was aided by a mild climate, rich soil, an abundance of timber, and a location near the great...
1900s, Photo Search
This postcard shows a trainload of cotton being readied to ship out of Newport. The railroads would soon surpass the steamboats as carriers of the area’s farm crops, and the age of the steamboat on the South’s inland waterways would be gone with the wind....
1880s, Photo Search
Joseph C. Sharp’s cotton gin was another important element in Swifton’s economy. This photograph from 1880 shows cotton arriving at the gin on a mule-drawn wagon, where it would be cleaned of trash, the seeds removed, and then compressed into bales. ...
1880s, Photo Search
This photograph of the Remmel Brothers Lumber Company is one of the earliest images of downtown Newport. Harmon Remmel and his brother Augustus came to Jackson County from New York in 1874 and made a fortune in the lumber business, capitalizing on the depressed...
1870s, Photo Search
Some steamboats carried as many as 125 passengers and 2,000 bales of cotton. When they came up the river, they carried thousands of sacks of salt along with cargo of sugar, molasses, and dry goods, which they could trade in the backcountry, before loading up with...
