Agricultural Wheel

The Agricultural Wheel was a cooperative alliance of farmers in the United States that existed from 1882 until 1888 when it merged with the National Farmers' Alliance. It was initially started by W. W. Tedford, farmer and school teacher, to improve farming conditions.

On February 15, 1882, during a period of depressed farm prices and drought, a group of nine Arkansas farmers led by W.W. Tetford, W. A. Suit and W. Taylor McBee met at the McBee Schoolhouse eight miles south of Des Arc, Prairie County, Arkansas and formed the Wattensas Farmers' Club. The club's stated goals were to improve the lives of farmers, improve their education and knowledge, and improve communications between them. Many Arkansas farmers were suffering under what they viewed as oppressive mortgages (known as anaconda mortgages) and were heavily in debt.

Within a short time it was suggested that the organization change its name. The choices were between "The Poor Man's Friend" and "The Agricultural Wheel" which was the name finally selected.

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The situation did not improve in Arkansas that year and farmers were in such desperate straits that they called upon Governor Churchill to ask the legislature to postpone the collection of taxes.

By 1883 the organization consisted of over 500 members in Arkansas. At the organization's meeting in the spring a state Wheel was established and deputies were appointed to spread the word to neighboring states and seek to establish local wheels in those states.

In 1885 the Wheel absorbed the Brothers of Freedom, another Arkansas farm organization.

In 1886 delegates from Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee gathered at the town of Litchfield, Arkansas and established the National Agricultural Wheel and to establish an official newspaper for the organization.

By the time of the 1887 meeting the membership of the national organization was over 500,000 farmers from Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Indian Territory, and Wisconsin.

The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among U.S. farmers that flourished in the 1880s. First formed in 1876 in Lampasas, Texas, the Alliance was designed to promote higher commodity prices through collective action by groups of individual farmers. The movement was strongest in the South and Great Plains, and was widely popular before it was destroyed by the power of commodity brokers. Despite its failure, it is regarded as the precursor to the United States Populist Party, which grew out of the ashes of the Alliance in 1889.

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Des Arc, Arkansas

Des Arc is the county seat of the northern district of Prairie County, Arkansas. The population was 1,933 at the 2000 census.
Prairie County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of 2000, the population is 9,539. The county has two county seats, Des Arc and De Valls Bluff. Prairie County was formed on October 25, 1846 and named for the Grand Prairie of eastern Arkansas.
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