CLARKSDALE, Miss. – Cotton history was changed forever at the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale with the invention of International Harvester’s mechanized cotton picker, an invention that had been in the works 40 years prior. It was Oct. 2, 1944, at the Hopson Plantation in front of 300 onlookers that an International Harvester mechanical cotton picker harvested the first cotton crop totally without the use of hand labor. For the first time, cotton planting, cultivating, irrigating, and harvesting was all done by machine. The model H-10-H spindle cotton picker was an invention that allowed the picker to harvest the cotton boll that holds the actual fiber.

Invented during WWII, because of lack of much needed materials for the cotton picker, it was not mass produced commercially until after 1947. Once more materials were available, the pickers were produced at the IH Memphis Works, then were mounted on Farmall H tractors.

Hopson Plantation became a Mecca for agricultural education with many coming to see the invention. This changed not only the way that cotton was harvested but decreased the need for the sharecropper type of farming, this affected the local culture as well. With less workers needed, African Americans and other workers migrated to the cities in the industrial north.

Today, the Shack Up Inn is a lodge and music venue where cotton history lives on through the advent of the blues. Visitors can see a one-row cotton picker sitting out front of the lobby that is the revamped cotton gin. In the past, several famous blues musicians worked on the plantations. One of the tractor drivers at Hopson Plantation was blues pianist Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins. Today, you can even stay in Pinetop’s cabin.

Muddy Waters was born at the nearby Stovall Plantation, and you can stop and see the former birthplace. His log cabin is no longer onsite though, as it has been moved for preservation to the Delta Blues Museum where you can wander inside and see other blues history. The story of the blues began in the fields. They originate from the days of sharecroppers. Before that, slaves sang spiritual field hollers while they worked. American Blacks in the early part of the century sang their stories. These stories evolved into what we know today as the blues.

For more information about the Shack Up Inn, visit www.shackupinn.com.

At the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson, Miss., visitors can see one of the original one-row cotton pickers used at Hopson Plantation on display. On their website they share, “During the antebellum period, cotton was viewed as the social and economic focus of life.”

The museum provides a section, Small Town Mississippi, that investigates cotton production, and the everyday life of Mississippi residents in the 1800s.

Prior to the mechanized cotton picker, and before the Civil War, several acres of cotton were handpicked on the southern plantations. Natchez, Miss., is one place to see this early cotton history. Stanton Hall was built by Irish immigrant and cotton merchant Frederick Stanton. Another stop to see cotton history is at Frogmore Plantation, where they have several buildings preserved, with the heart of the plantation the old-time cotton gin onsite.

For a take on life for the average Louisiana cotton farmer at the turn of the century, check out the LSU Rural Life Museum. Run by Louisiana State University, the museum is filled with the largest collection of Louisiana vernacular architecture.

There are cool rural buildings, along with equipment all local to Louisiana.

While most ag museums are in a somewhat rural area, The Cotton Museum located in downtown Memphis is a historical and cultural museum that opened on the former floor of the Memphis Cotton Exchange.

Another stop collectors and agricultural historians will enjoy is the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock. While the museum offers history in several aspects, there is an 1850s farmstead where the families started cotton farming.  Finding an abandoned house, a log cabin made of cypress, the family moved in. Besides the hoe there is also a barn, blacksmith shop and Bois d’arc fence.

The Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott, Ark., is in the 1912 commissary built for the Elmhurst Plantation. The land belonged to Conway Scott, who obtained the farm from a land grant issued by James Madison for 150 acres. The main house was about five miles away, and the guide at the museum said, “Steamboats loaded took cotton to New Orleans.”

Robert Dortch, a local planter took over the store, and in the 1960s, converted it to a museum. Today the museum belongs to Arkansas, and they interpret the state’s legacy of cotton agriculture. The tour includes the 1912 commissary building, Dortch Gin Building, and Seed Warehouse No. 5.

These are a few places to learn about cotton that was once deemed as king of the south.