The Black Belt of Alabama together with the Black Prairie of Mississippi is a crescent-shaped swath of fertile marly soil that sweeps west, then arcs north around the town of Macon and continues to the Tennessee state line. Settlers moving south through the Atlantic states and Georgia coveted the fertile grassy land with only occasional stands of hardwoods because it required little clearing for cotton planting. The Prairie extends into eleven Mississippi counties, but the architecture of Lowndes, Monroe, Noxubee, and Clay counties was most distinctly shaped by the region’s prosperous agricultural economy both before and after the Civil War. Cotton, corn, and soybeans remain important cash crops here today.
Columbus Air Force Base, which opened north of Columbus in 1941, served a vital role in the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War and today brings a regular stream of student pilots through the region. In recent years, the base has also provided the impetus for several aeronautical firms, which are part of a modest but important industrial economy that also includes tire, steel, and car-part production.
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