Phillips County, Arkansas

County courthouse, on Sept. 29, 2019 - ex- actly a hundred years after the massacre. “It represents justice and how we have grown as a community,” says Hall. “It represents the aftermath of that tragedy, how we’ve tried to recognize that incident, and how it played out to make our state and country a better place to live.” Other cultural institutions in Phillips County include the Delta Cultural Center and the King Biscuit Blues Festival, an annual multi-day music event held in Helena. A newer event that has been added to the Blues Festival is the Tour da Delta, a 60-mile cycling race that winds through the rolling hills of St. Francis National Forest, while also passing historical landmarks, such as a ¾ scale reproduction of Ft. Curtis, a major Union army fortification dur- ing and immediately after the Civil War. Phillips County is also hoping to grow its econ- omy by attracting new industry to the region. The Helena Harbor Industrial Complex, oper- ating under the auspices of the Helena-West Helena-Phillips County Port Authority, is a fully-equipped, 4,000-acre industrial park built on the banks of the Mississippi River, and rep- resents the area’s brightest beacon for growth since the loss of the Mohawk Tire Company in the 1970s. “We have two or three industries out there, employing several hundred local employees and expansion is in the works on a couple of those,” says Hall.