Images of America - Chicot County

Chicot County, situated along the Mississippi River, was created in 1823. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans like Frenchman René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle visited the region. With the French influence, the area came to be known as Chicot for the "snags" and "stumps" that populated the swampy bottomlands of the Mississippi River. Beginning in the 1830s, slave-based agriculture dominated the county's economy. By 1860, it was filled with prosperous cotton producers; many plantations were concentrated near the Mississippi River. The county's three principal towns--Dermott (1890), Lake Village (1898), and Eudora (1904)--incorporated as the county began to modernize. Local merchants flourished in the early decades of the 20th century, and Lake Village, situated on Lake Chicot, attracted many tourists. More recently, the county has suffered population loss and struggled economically, but agriculture still thrives, and the county's proud traditions continue.