Lee County Arkansas Landlord-Tenant Law: Delta Roots, a James Beard Pit, and the Point Where America Was Measured
On a humid morning in 1815, a team of federal surveyors waded into a 37-acre headwater swamp at the confluence of two rivers in what would soon become Arkansas Territory and drove an iron post into the ground. That post marked the Initial Point — the precise geographic origin from which the entire Louisiana Purchase would be surveyed, mapped, and eventually divided into farms, counties, and states stretching from Louisiana to Montana. Today that spot is preserved as the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park, a National Historic Landmark, located at the corner of Lee, Phillips, and Monroe counties in eastern Arkansas. Few places in the American interior carry such a quietly momentous significance. Almost everything between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains that entered the United States in 1803 was measured from a muddy swamp in what is now Lee County, Arkansas.
Lee County itself wasn’t established until 1873, more than half a century after that survey was completed, but the land it encompasses had already been shaped by the forces that would define Delta Arkansas for generations: the Mississippi River, cotton, and the labor of enslaved and then sharecropped Black workers on some of the richest agricultural soil in North America. The county was formed from parts of Crittenden, Monroe, Phillips, and St. Francis counties during Reconstruction, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and built its early prosperity on cotton agriculture that transformed the delta bottomland into one of the most productive — and one of the most difficult — landscapes in American history.
The Oldest Pit in Arkansas: Jones Bar-B-Q Diner
In the food world, Lee County is known for something that has nothing to do with surveys or cotton fields: Jones Bar-B-Q Diner at 219 W. Louisiana Street in Marianna, the state’s first recipient of a James Beard Award and by most accounts one of the oldest continuously operating Black-owned restaurants in the United States. The restaurant traces its origins to at least 1910, when Walter Jones began selling smoked pork from his home — first out of his back porch, then through a window in a downtown storefront known as The Hole in the Wall. In 1964, Hubert Jones moved the operation to its current location, and James and Betty Jones, the current operators, have kept the same recipes, the same oak-and-hickory pits, and the same vinegar-based sauce that the family has used for over a century.
When the James Beard Foundation named Jones Bar-B-Q Diner an America’s Classic in 2012, James and Betty Jones reportedly had never heard of the award. The diner operates out of the ground floor of the Joneses’ own home, seats perhaps two tables, and goes through roughly 900 pounds of pork shoulder a week. It opens at 7 a.m. and closes when the meat runs out — often before noon. The recognition brought food writers, journalists, and barbecue pilgrims from around the world to a small Marianna side street, briefly turning the national spotlight on a community that the broader economy had largely bypassed. In 2021, a grease fire destroyed much of the building; the community rallied to support a rebuild, and Jones’ reopened within months. The diner was also inducted into the inaugural class of the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame in 2017. For anyone interested in understanding Lee County, a visit to Jones Bar-B-Q is not optional — it is the county in miniature: deep roots, remarkable quality, resilient in the face of hardship.
The Smallest National Forest and the Mississippi River Shoreline
East of Marianna lies the St. Francis National Forest — at just over 22,000 acres, the smallest national forest in the United States by area. The forest runs along Crowley’s Ridge and into the low bottomlands along the St. Francis and Mississippi rivers, and it holds a distinction found nowhere else in the entire National Forest System: it is the only place where the public can stand on the shoreline of the Mississippi River within a national forest. The St. Francis River, which drains much of northeast Arkansas, meets the Mississippi within the forest boundaries, and the Mississippi River State Park — one of Arkansas’s newest state parks — is located within the forest. Bear Creek Lake inside the forest offers camping, fishing, boating, and picnicking. Two of Arkansas’s National Scenic Byways — the Great River Road and the Crowley’s Ridge Parkway — pass through the forest.
For landlords, the St. Francis National Forest and Mississippi River corridor represent a modest but real short-term rental opportunity. The area draws waterfowl hunters (Lee County sits directly on the Mississippi Flyway, one of the most important migratory bird corridors in North America), bass and catfish anglers, birders, and Great River Road road-trippers. Properties with reasonable proximity to the forest, Bear Creek Lake, or the river may find seasonal STR demand during fall hunting season and spring fishing season. Verify any short-term rental registration or permit requirements with the City of Marianna before listing.
The 1936 Courthouse: New Deal Architecture in the Delta
The Lee County Courthouse at 15 E. Chestnut Street in Marianna is one of the most architecturally distinguished county courthouses in Arkansas and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1936 with federal Public Works Administration funding, the building was designed by George Mahan Jr. of Memphis with Everett Woods, blending Classical Revival symmetry with emerging Art Deco detailing in limestone and yellow brick. The interior features oak doors, wood moldings, metal staircases, and painted plaster walls characteristic of Depression-era public construction. Two freestanding fountains on the second floor are an unusual touch found in few other Arkansas courthouses of the period. A 1965 addition replaced the original 1890 section of the building with a one-story courtroom wing. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program cites the courthouse as the best example of Classical Revival architecture in the county and a visible result of New Deal investment in rural public infrastructure.
Screening in Lee County: A High-Vacancy Delta Market
Lee County presents specific challenges for landlords that are common across the Arkansas Delta but acutely felt in a county that has lost population every decade for eighty years. With 8,600 residents countywide and Marianna’s city population estimated below 3,500, the rental market has more available units relative to qualified applicants than in growing suburban or college markets. The temptation in this environment is to relax screening criteria to fill vacancies — to overlook a spotty rental history, skip income verification, or accept a thin credit profile because the alternative is an empty unit.
This is the fundamental screening discipline challenge of rural Delta landlording, and it is worth addressing directly. A vacant unit costs a landlord rent; a problem tenancy can cost rent plus an eviction proceeding, property damage, lost time, and legal fees. In a market with limited demand, maintaining consistent, documented screening standards actually protects landlords more, not less, than in high-demand markets — because every marginal placement decision has a higher relative cost when qualified applicants are scarce.
The most stable employment sectors for Lee County tenant screening are public sector and institutional: the East Arkansas Regional Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction (corrections officers and staff are state W-2 employees with predictable pay); the Lee County School District (teachers and staff are under annual contracts with documented income); the Olly Neal Community Health Center healthcare workers (particularly stable following the 2024 facility renovation and renaming); and county and municipal government employees generally. Agricultural income from farm owner-operators should be documented with two years of Schedule F federal returns; evaluate net farm income only, not gross crop receipts.
Arkansas Landlord-Tenant Law in Lee County
All residential rental relationships in Lee County are governed entirely by statewide Arkansas law. The governing statutes are A.C.A. §§ 18-16-101 through 18-16-108 and the Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 2007, A.C.A. §§ 18-17-101 et seq. There is no local rent control, no just-cause eviction requirement, and no landlord licensing requirement in Marianna or Lee County.
For nonpayment of rent, serve a written 3-day notice to vacate after rent is at least 5 days past due. For lease violations other than nonpayment, serve a 14-day notice to cure or quit identifying the specific breach. Month-to-month tenancies require 30 days’ written notice to terminate; week-to-week require 7 days. Security deposits are capped at two months’ rent for landlords with six or more rental units and must be returned with written itemized deductions within 60 days of lease termination. Arkansas does not impose a default implied warranty of habitability; tenants have no repair-and-deduct remedy. Abandoned property may be disposed of after lease termination. Self-help evictions are prohibited.
All evictions in Lee County are filed with Circuit Clerk Millie A. Hill, 15 E. Chestnut St., Room 2, Marianna, AR 72360, (870) 295-7710. Lee County is a wet county.
This guide is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Arkansas landlord-tenant law is governed by the Arkansas Code Annotated and applies statewide, with no local rent control or just-cause eviction requirements in Lee County. Consult a licensed Arkansas attorney or contact the 1st Judicial Circuit Court Clerk at (870) 295-7710 for guidance specific to your situation. Last updated: March 2026.
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