Faulkner
Member
While following up on an incident I responded to earlier this week I did some research for my supplimental report that I thought a few of you might find interesting, especially those of you who grew up in the south.
The initial incident involved a report of an ATV accident with injury. Two teenagers were riding 4-wheelers through the woods, what we call a "turkey run", when one of them topped a small rise at speed and ran into an old cattle dipping vat. Fortunately, both of the young fellows were geared up with helmets and some protective clothing, gloves & boots, but the one that ended up in the vat did sustained a broken collar bone and other injuries. Unfortunately, the property was posted, they did not have permission to be on the property, and were therefore trespassing.
But, that's another story . . . .
As I was wrapping up my incident report I got curious about the old cattle dipping vat. I've run across dozens of them all across Arkansas and northern Mississippi ever since I was old enough to hunt. Sometimes I see them around old farm places, but I've often run across them out in the middle of the woods too. My father told me when I was a kid that they were cattle dipping vats and I took that at face value, so I knew what they were, just not what they were really used for.
As a result, I did some digging in our county archives as well as on line and I discovered that I really hadn't appreciated the whole tick eradication program of a hundred years ago, back when the federal government could actually do something constructive. I discovered that from 1907 to circa 1943, Arkansas was a participant in the federal tick eradication program for the prevention of Texas tick fever among the state's cattle herds. Arkansas's climate and traditional agricultural practices among stockmen in the early twentieth century were perfect for the spread of boophilus-annulatus (also known as the cattle tick), one-host arachnids that completed their life cycle on a single animal. These ticks would acquire protozoan parasites by ingesting the blood of an animal infected with pathogens that destroyed red blood cells. After the engorged tick dropped off the host and laid eggs, the newly hatched ticks would pass the pathogens on by attaching to another host, thus spreading parasitic blood diseases. Texas tick fever in cattle was at near epidemic proportions in the late 19th and early 20th century all over the south.
These diseases resulted in compromised health, weight loss, infertility, reduced milk production, and death of cattle. These symptoms caused monetary losses for the farmers and the rejection of their cows in the national market. Nineteenth-century cattle drives through Arkansas from Texas were blamed for the introduction of the tick; however, pre–Civil War accounts of the inferior condition of Southern cattle raised the theory that the cattle tick could have existed in the state prior to the drives.
In 1906, the Bureau of Animal Industry of the USDA, along with state and county authorities began a cooperative campaign to eradicate the cattle tick. Experimentation in various forms of tick eradication was commenced with a federal appropriation. The method found to be most efficient was dipping the cattle in a solution poisonous to the tick. As of 1914, it was declared by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station that the system of constructing dipping vats and systematically dipping cattle was the most effective method of eradicating ticks. At that time, dipping vats had been constructed in three-fourths of Arkansas counties by individuals or by groups of farmers.
Two federal eradication districts were established in Arkansas in 1915. County municipalities wishing to join these districts were required to petition their senators and representatives, as were residents of the counties who wanted to form a separate district. All stockmen in those areas helped finance the program by paying a five-cent-per-head annual tax. Once a county was accepted into a district, twenty-five to forty concrete dipping vats would be situated in such a way that no farmer would have to travel over three miles to get to them.
Fifteen counties in the northwest and northeast tier of Arkansas managed to rid themselves of the ticks by 1907 and obtain disease-free status. The cattle tick was considered to be eradicated from Arkansas and the United States by around 1943, but voluntary dipping continued, some vats being used in south Arkansas up to 1960.
Owners of vat remains and archaeologists have been cautioned of the continued threat of arsenic poisoning around such resources. Although much of the toxic ingredients were dispersed into nearby water sources, some, such as sulfur and creosote, can remain in the soil. Vats were supposed to be recharged and the dip recycled at the beginning of the dipping season, but there is the possibility that the solution was simply left to leach into the ground as vats fell into disuse. Current owners and archaeologists are encouraged to perform testing of soil samples of the site before further investigation.
Now I understand why I've seen so many of these vats around the state and that they actually have historical significance.
The initial incident involved a report of an ATV accident with injury. Two teenagers were riding 4-wheelers through the woods, what we call a "turkey run", when one of them topped a small rise at speed and ran into an old cattle dipping vat. Fortunately, both of the young fellows were geared up with helmets and some protective clothing, gloves & boots, but the one that ended up in the vat did sustained a broken collar bone and other injuries. Unfortunately, the property was posted, they did not have permission to be on the property, and were therefore trespassing.
But, that's another story . . . .
As I was wrapping up my incident report I got curious about the old cattle dipping vat. I've run across dozens of them all across Arkansas and northern Mississippi ever since I was old enough to hunt. Sometimes I see them around old farm places, but I've often run across them out in the middle of the woods too. My father told me when I was a kid that they were cattle dipping vats and I took that at face value, so I knew what they were, just not what they were really used for.
As a result, I did some digging in our county archives as well as on line and I discovered that I really hadn't appreciated the whole tick eradication program of a hundred years ago, back when the federal government could actually do something constructive. I discovered that from 1907 to circa 1943, Arkansas was a participant in the federal tick eradication program for the prevention of Texas tick fever among the state's cattle herds. Arkansas's climate and traditional agricultural practices among stockmen in the early twentieth century were perfect for the spread of boophilus-annulatus (also known as the cattle tick), one-host arachnids that completed their life cycle on a single animal. These ticks would acquire protozoan parasites by ingesting the blood of an animal infected with pathogens that destroyed red blood cells. After the engorged tick dropped off the host and laid eggs, the newly hatched ticks would pass the pathogens on by attaching to another host, thus spreading parasitic blood diseases. Texas tick fever in cattle was at near epidemic proportions in the late 19th and early 20th century all over the south.
These diseases resulted in compromised health, weight loss, infertility, reduced milk production, and death of cattle. These symptoms caused monetary losses for the farmers and the rejection of their cows in the national market. Nineteenth-century cattle drives through Arkansas from Texas were blamed for the introduction of the tick; however, pre–Civil War accounts of the inferior condition of Southern cattle raised the theory that the cattle tick could have existed in the state prior to the drives.
In 1906, the Bureau of Animal Industry of the USDA, along with state and county authorities began a cooperative campaign to eradicate the cattle tick. Experimentation in various forms of tick eradication was commenced with a federal appropriation. The method found to be most efficient was dipping the cattle in a solution poisonous to the tick. As of 1914, it was declared by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station that the system of constructing dipping vats and systematically dipping cattle was the most effective method of eradicating ticks. At that time, dipping vats had been constructed in three-fourths of Arkansas counties by individuals or by groups of farmers.
Two federal eradication districts were established in Arkansas in 1915. County municipalities wishing to join these districts were required to petition their senators and representatives, as were residents of the counties who wanted to form a separate district. All stockmen in those areas helped finance the program by paying a five-cent-per-head annual tax. Once a county was accepted into a district, twenty-five to forty concrete dipping vats would be situated in such a way that no farmer would have to travel over three miles to get to them.
Fifteen counties in the northwest and northeast tier of Arkansas managed to rid themselves of the ticks by 1907 and obtain disease-free status. The cattle tick was considered to be eradicated from Arkansas and the United States by around 1943, but voluntary dipping continued, some vats being used in south Arkansas up to 1960.
Owners of vat remains and archaeologists have been cautioned of the continued threat of arsenic poisoning around such resources. Although much of the toxic ingredients were dispersed into nearby water sources, some, such as sulfur and creosote, can remain in the soil. Vats were supposed to be recharged and the dip recycled at the beginning of the dipping season, but there is the possibility that the solution was simply left to leach into the ground as vats fell into disuse. Current owners and archaeologists are encouraged to perform testing of soil samples of the site before further investigation.
Now I understand why I've seen so many of these vats around the state and that they actually have historical significance.
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