Bolivar County lies down on the rich delta lands of Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Arkansas River. In 1887, when the track of what is now the dinky Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad was laid, Bolivar's rich bottomlands were an uninhabited jungle. The railroad, eager for customers along the route, but fearing that white men would die off under the hot summer sun, decided to try Negroes. Isaiah T. Montgomery, a onetime slave of Jefferson Davis, and his cousin Benjamin T. Green were induced to start a colony. Thus was founded the...
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