Gone, but not forgotten: Newton County in 1930

The Arkansas Gazette printed an article April 3, 1931, giving a snapshot of what life was like in Newton County in 1930. In that year, the county had 1,864 farms with a total of 190,919 acres.
The total value of the farms was $2,529,913. The average farm had 102.4 acres valued at $13.25 per acre. Most of the farms in the county were family farms. There were 1,235 of them.
Four farms were operated by a farm manager and 572 were tenant farms.
These farms had a total of 1,270 horses (down from 1,973 in 1920), 2,014 mules (down from 2,200 in 1920), 3,614 milk cows (down from 3,999 in 1920), 7,194 hogs (down from 19,319 in 1920), and 48,429 chickens (down from 66,118 in 1920).

Newton Countians also made money harvesting the bounties of the forest. Dec. 10, 1939, the Arkansas Gazette reported a bumper crop of black walnuts in Newton County. They sold their hulled walnuts in Harrison for $1 per bushel. If they took the time to extract the nutmeats (called kernels), they got twenty to 20-25 cents a pound.
Newton County folk spent their spare time gathering the nuts and extracting the nutmeats in order to get funds for Christmas. One housewife, it was reported, "does all her housework and then extracts enough kernels to net $1.60 a day." Five people near Boxley gathered 400 bushels of hulled nuts, for which they received $80.

Barbara LeRoy is the author of “Which Side Were They On?,” a new 302 page book listing biographical sketches of the Newton Countians who were involved in the Civil War, available for sale either in the Bradley House Museum or by purchasing online at www.newtoncountyar.com. The book sells for $33.