Dockery Farms

Dockery Farms began in 1895 on the Sunflower River between Ruleville and Cleveland, when Will Dockery turned Delta swampland into a cotton plantation. It grew into a company town with its own railroad stop, post office, doctor, commissary, churches and cemetery. Unlike most Delta plantations it relied on wage hands rather than sharecroppers, and it issued coins of its own.

Charley Patton's family came here around 1900, and he became the center of a circle that included Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson and Son House, with Howlin' Wolf and Pops Staples coming up behind them. Patton played at house parties, at the commissary and in juke joints. In 1929 H. C. Speir, a Jackson furniture dealer who scouted talent for record companies, found him here and arranged his first recordings. Two songs carry the place. "Pea Vine Blues" is about the plantation's railroad, and "34 Blues" has the line "They run me from Will Dockery's."

Dockery is a working farm now, growing rice, soybeans and corn, and the National Register lists the historic district. Some of the old plantation buildings survive, and a Mississippi Blues Trail marker explains the place. Treat it as private land: the site hosts only a small number of tours and events, so check ahead before you turn in. The sound of the place lives in the recordings, and it helps to listen to Patton before you go.