Robert E. Lee Wilson

Robert Edward Lee Wilson (born on 5. March 1865 in Frenchman's Bayou ( Mississippi County ), died on 27. September 1933 in Memphis (Tennessee) ) was an American entrepreneur . He founded the Lee Wilson and Company , later one of the largest agricultural companies in the United States.

Life

Robert E. Lee Wilson was born the third child of Josiah Wilson and Martha Parson Wilson. In addition to the two siblings, he had two half-sisters.

His father ran a 9.3 km² plantation with around 39 slaves in 1860 and died in 1870 without a will. At the age of 5, Robert E. Lee Wilson inherited around 1.6 km² of farmland, which, however, consisted mostly of forested marshland. His property was administered by a brother-in-law. After his mother died of a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee , in 1878 , he was placed under the care of an uncle. In 1880 he returned to Arkansas and worked on a farm.

In 1882 he declared that he was of legal age before the court and began building his own plantation. On December 20, 1884, he married Elizabeth Beall. The couple had four children, one of whom died young.

In the following years he acquired real estate in the so-called Arkansas Delta , primarily in Mississippi County (Arkansas) . Together with his father-in-law Socrates Beall, he founded the Wilson & Beall Lumber Company in 1886. He sold the wood created by clearing the marshland in order to purchase more land. Unlike other logging entrepreneurs, he kept the cleared land. After the clearing, he began to drain the areas so that they could be used for agriculture, especially for growing cotton and grain.

In 1904 he founded the Lee Wilson and Company . He set up the headquarters of the company in Wilson, which he built . As part of the reclamation of the region, he also founded the places named after his daughters Victoria and Marie as well as Armorel (made up of Arkansas, Missouri, RE Lee). In 1908 he also founded a bank in order to be able to finance his own companies in a meaningful way. This approach meant that the company was able to survive the consequences of floods, drought and the Great Depression largely unscathed. As part of the development of the area, he built or acquired several railway companies in order to make the transport of the wood cheaper and to stimulate the economic development of the places.

Like other landowners of his time, a large part of his property was leased to farmers who paid the rent with part of the harvest. He was also repeatedly investigated for violating the freedom to leave a job.

To ensure the company's survival, in 1933, after lengthy negotiations, he received a loan from the state-run Reconstruction Finance Corporation . He also supported the agricultural improvement programs launched by Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1935, the company was the largest agricultural recipient of support from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration .

When he died on September 27, 1933, his company owned 263 km² of land.

Robert E. Lee Wilson supported the building of schools in Wilson. He was a member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission and served on the board of directors of Hendrix College and A&M College (now Arkansas State University ). He made a will that part of his estate should be used for educational purposes.

literature

• Jeannie Whayne: Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South (2011, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press)

Web links

• Jeannie Whayne in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: Robert Edward Lee Wilson (1865–1933)
• Lee Wilson & Company: Yesterday and Today. University of Arkansas, accessed October 19, 2017 .