April 9, 1883

The Agricultural Wheel was incorporated as a statewide organization, with a membership of 500 and E. R. McPherson as state president. The Wheel was a state farmers’ union, founded in the Arkansas Delta, which expanded into ten other states, mostly in the South but reaching as far north as Wisconsin. Although the Agricultural Wheel was short-lived as an independent farmers’ union, it influenced the future formation of other such unions in Arkansas and led, in part, to the rise of the Populist movement in the state.