Poinsett County Arkansas Landlord-Tenant Law: The Poinsettia’s Namesake, Arkansas’s Biggest Rice County, the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, and What Every Landlord Needs to Know
Every December, millions of Americans decorate their homes with poinsettias — and almost none of them know that the plant’s name comes from a South Carolina diplomat and botanist named Joel Roberts Poinsett, who served as the first US envoy to Mexico from 1825 to 1829 and brought the plant north from South America in 1828. Poinsett later served as US Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Martin Van Buren, and it is in that capacity that he lent his name to Poinsett County, Arkansas, formed on February 28, 1838. It is a county named, at one remove, for the most ubiquitous holiday plant in America.
The county sits in the northeast corner of Arkansas, bisected north-to-south by Crowley’s Ridge — a distinctive geological formation running like a narrow spine through the otherwise flat Delta landscape. The ridge divides the county into agricultural zones: cotton and soybeans grow in the rich alluvial Mississippi River soil to the east; rice fills the fields to the west; beef and dairy cattle graze along the ridge itself. Poinsett County is Arkansas’s single largest rice-producing county, with approximately 114,000 acres planted annually, consistently ranking it among the top rice-producing counties in the entire nation.
The Sunken Lands and the World’s First Disaster Relief Fund
The flat terrain of eastern Poinsett County has an unusual geological origin. During the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 — among the most powerful seismic events ever recorded in North American history — large areas of land in the St. Francis River basin literally sank between 15 and 20 feet, destroying the river’s original channel and creating the swamps and wetlands known today as the “Sunken Lands.” The disaster prompted the federal government to institute what historians recognize as its first formal disaster relief program, issuing “New Madrid Certificates” entitling displaced landowners to new acreage in the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The St. Francis Sunken Lands Wildlife Management Area preserves this extraordinary landscape today, offering hunting on terrain shaped by one of the continent’s great geological upheavals. A further curiosity: the Riverdale Tunnel in eastern Poinsett County carries the Buffalo Ditch under the water of a branch of the St. Francis River — one river running under another — a hydrological engineering feature unique to the county.
The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Organized Labor in the Delta
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in US history, and Poinsett County was its hardest-hit Arkansas county: more than 200,000 acres went under water at the worst phase of the flooding, and thousands of sharecropper families were rendered homeless. The trauma of the flood and the grinding poverty of the Depression-era Delta sharecropper system created conditions for one of the most remarkable labor organizing efforts in American history. In July 1934, H.L. Mitchell and Clay East founded the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU) in Tyronza — one of the very few interracial unions in Depression-era America, organizing both Black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers to demand fair pay and decent treatment from plantation owners. The STFU met violent resistance: union leaders and members were attacked and some killed. Today the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum in Tyronza — operated by Arkansas State University — preserves the history of this extraordinary organization in the original buildings where it was founded.
Trumann: The Singer Company Town
Trumann, the county’s largest city, began as a timber camp in the 1890s and grew into a significant industrial town anchored by the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which built a large plant there to manufacture sewing machine cabinets from local lumber. At its peak, Singer employed more than 2,500 workers in Trumann and operated a genuine company town: company-owned housing, electricity, water supply, fire department, parks, baseball fields, and a Community House for civic gatherings. The original Singer houses still dot Trumann’s streets. Singer’s Community House, now owned by the city, remains in active civic use and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Maxie Theatre, which opened in 1947, is also on the National Register. In December 2021, a large tornado struck Trumann, destroying or damaging more than 200 homes and drawing national attention to the community.
Arkansas Landlord-Tenant Law in Poinsett County
All residential rental relationships in Poinsett County are governed entirely by statewide Arkansas law. There is no local rent control, no just-cause eviction requirement, and no landlord licensing requirement in Harrisburg, Trumann, or Poinsett County. For nonpayment, serve a 3-day notice to vacate after rent is 5+ days past due. For lease violations, serve a 14-day notice to cure. Month-to-month tenancies require 30 days’ written notice to terminate. Security deposits are capped at two months’ rent for landlords with six or more units, returned with itemized deductions within 60 days. No implied warranty of habitability by default; no repair-and-deduct remedy; self-help evictions prohibited. Poinsett County is a wet county.
File evictions with Circuit Clerk Misty Russell, 401 Market St., Harrisburg, AR 72432, (870) 578-4420.
This guide is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed Arkansas attorney or contact the 2nd Judicial Circuit Court Clerk at (870) 578-4420 for guidance specific to your situation. Last updated: March 2026.
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