October 9, 2011

In 1902, the state purchased a site about twenty-eight miles south of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and opened a prison unit there known as Cummins State Farm. Over the past 100-plus years, the facility, today known as the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, has grown to approximately 16,000 acres and can house up to 1,700 inmates. This growth has required the addition of many new buildings. Governor Benjamin Laney is shown here in a 1948 photograph breaking ground for one of those new buildings.