Dockery Farms — Birthplace of the Blues

Will Dockery graduated from Ole Miss and bought land on the Sunflower River in 1895 for its timber. He recognized the richness of the soil and cleared cypress and gum swamp for cotton. At peak the plantation ran 25,600 acres and supported over two thousand workers—sharecroppers and itinerants who came from across the South because Dockery paid fair and let people move as they pleased.

Around 1900 he built a rail terminal on the property, connecting the plantation to the main line at Rosedale via the Yellow Dog's circuitous branch, locally called the Pea Vine. The plantation had its own store, post office, school, doctor, churches, and scrip currency. Workers lived in boardinghouses where they played guitars, accordions, banjos, mandolins, and harmonicas. Dockery took no interest in the music. He made it easy to travel and spend leisure time however they wanted.

Charley Patton and his family moved to Dockery around 1900. He came under the influence of an older musician, Henry Sloan. By the mid-1920s Patton had become the central figure of a group that included Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, and Son House. The plantation sat central to Sunflower County's black population of thirty-five thousand and became known as a center for informal musical entertainment. A younger generation arrived: Robert Johnson, Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett, Roebuck "Pops" Staples, David "Honeyboy" Edwards. Some were itinerant; others stayed.

Will Dockery died in 1936. His son Joe Rice Dockery inherited the operation. Mechanization and the pull of northern cities drained the settlements. Some of the historic buildings remain. The farm still works—soybeans, rice, corn. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker stands in Cleveland. The site hosts private tours and events in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and Delta State University.