Deltapine Revisited: The Metamorphosis of a Plantation

Forty years ago Merle Prunty published a series of articles based upon his seminal research on Southern cotton plantations. One of these was entitled "Deltapine: Field Laboratory for the Neoplantation Occupance Type," [published in Festschrift for Clarence F. Jones, (Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, Studies in Geography, No. 6 [1962], pp. 151-172). In this study, Prunty addressed the morphologic and functional evolution of the Deltapine Plantation, a 38,000-acre landholding in Bolivar and Washington counties, Mississippi, from its inception in the early 20th century through the late 1950s. This study revisits Deltapine, seeking to document the morphological and operational evolution of the landholding from 1960 through the present.