December 13, 2012

William Bunch, known as “Peetie Wheatstraw,” was raised in Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) and became one of the most popular and widely imitated bluesmen of the 1930s and 1940s. He was an incredibly successful pianist, recording more than 160 songs between 1930 and 1941. He died on his thirty-ninth birthday, December 21, 1941, when the car he was riding in failed to make a curve and struck a standing freight train.