One of the state’s most intact cotton plantation complexes from the early twentieth century, Dockery Farms is also a mecca for blues fans. In 1895, Will Dockery, a Cleveland sawmill owner, cleared the impenetrable hardwoods and thick cane on this land along the Sunflower River. By the 1920s, he had six thousand acres in cotton production and employed around two thousand workers at harvest time. Several early bluesmen, most notably Charley Patton, lived and worked here, passing down musical ideas through several generations.
As at Hopson Plantation (DR44), a railroad branch served the farm, leading to a concentration of agri-industrial structures at the terminus. The cypress-framed seed house (c. 1930) retains its painted sign: “Dockery Farms, Est. 1895 by Will Dockery 1865–1936, Joe Rice Dockery Owner.” Wagons and trucks were driven underneath, where seed was loaded. Connecting at the rear is a corrugated-metal gin (c. 1930) with a characteristic drive-through. Other buildings include three from c. 1925: the mule shed/hay barn east of the seed house, a cotton storage shed, and a long, fertilizer storage barn on the west side of the drive. A circular concrete mule water trough (c. 1930) functioned as a baptismal pool for local black churches in lieu of the snake-infested river. Soon after the c. 1935 paving of Highway 8, Joe Dockery built the clapboard Moderne Dockery Service Station ( pictured), with its red-striped canopy, and a plantation office. Today, while the Dockery family still farms the surrounding land, the front complex is owned by the Dockery Farms Foundation.