Dockery Plantation, Cotton plantation and musical site in Sunflower County, United States.
Dockery Plantation is a cotton plantation in Sunflower County, United States, stretching along the Sunflower River between the towns of Ruleville and Cleveland in Mississippi. The site includes agricultural fields and several preserved wooden buildings from around 1900, including a commissary and workers' housing.
Will Dockery purchased the land in 1895 and built a plantation that grew into a self-contained settlement with its own store, school, and church. During the first decades of the 20th century, many workers and their families moved here, and some of them developed a new form of music now known as Delta Blues.
The site takes its name from the founding family, whose descendants still live in the area today. Visitors can see the remaining buildings where some of the early blues musicians lived and worked while they developed their songs.
The site is located on MS-8 between Ruleville and Cleveland and is accessible through guided tours that should be booked in advance. Pathways lead across flat terrain, and some buildings can only be viewed from the outside.
The fields are still farmed today, mostly with soybeans, rice, and corn, while the old buildings remain standing in between. The property was one of the few in the Delta that ran its own radio station to broadcast music and news for the workers.
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