Arkansas’ Golden Triangle
Idevoted last Sunday’s column to what might wind up being the story of the year in Arkansas: The decision by Exxon Mobil to build one of the world’s largest lithium-processing facilities near Magnolia. According to The Wall Street Journal, that facility will have the capacity to produce 75,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium a year. That equals 15 percent of all finished lithium produced globally last year.
If Exxon produces 100,000 metric tons annually, its plant will represent at least a $6 billion investment. The largest private-sector investment in Arkansas history is the $3 billion U.S. Steel is now spending to build a mill near Osceola. This doesn’t even factor in what other companies such as Standard Lithium are doing in south Arkansas.
Standard Lithium CEO Robert Mintak says the region could become “as significant to domestic lithium production as the Permian Basin of west Texas and New Mexico has been for U.S. oil output.”
It will be this century’s equivalent of the 1920s oil boom in south Arkansas. The Journal datelined its story Magnolia, but the boom also will transform El Dorado and Camden, which is beginning to benefit from rapid growth in the defense industry. Camden saw its population drop from 15,823 in 1960 to 10,612 in 2020. During that same period, El Dorado’s population fell from 25,292 to 17,756.
As a college town (the home of thriving Southern Arkansas University), Magnolia has fared a bit better. It grew slightly from 10,651 in 1960 to 11,162 in 2020.
Once a prominent steamboat port on the Ouachita River, Camden is the oldest of the three cities that make up what economic developers like to call the Golden Triangle. Camden began as Ecore a Fabre, a French trading post. It was later known as the Queen City of the Ouachita and was a key strategic point during the Civil War.
“With development of railroads, Camden was able to exploit its rich timberlands and remain an important transportation hub,” Daniel Milam writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Camden has been important in both industry and education. Politically, Camden has had tremendous influence, producing governors and U.S. senators.
“After the Civil War, cotton production remained strong. Much of it was accomplished by sharecropping. Steamboats continued to navigate the river, but railroads were coming. In the 1880s, the Iron Mountain and the Cotton Belt arrived. In the early 1900s, the Rock Island connection was completed. Trains opened markets for Ouachita County’s pine and hardwood forests. Though they were challenged by railroads, steamboats continued to serve Camden until the 1930s.”
Shumaker Naval Depot operated in nearby Calhoun County from World War II until 1957. It reopened as Highland Industrial Park in the 1960s. The defense industry now employs more than 3,000 people at facilities in that industrial park. Hundreds of jobs will be added during the next two years. A huge International Paper Co. mill that opened in the 1920s closed in January 2001.
Camden’s population soared from 3,238 in 1920 to 11,372 in 1950. The coming of International Paper and the oil boom were responsible for that prosperity.
Magnolia, established in 1853 as the new Columbia County seat and incorporated in 1855, was chosen as the home of one of the state’s four district agricultural schools in 1909. That institution, which held its first classes in 1911, is now SAU.
Oil was discovered in Columbia County in June 1922, the year after the south Arkansas oil boom began in neighboring Union County. Thanks to a growing school and that oil boom, Magnolia saw its population triple from 2,158 in 1920 to 6,917 in 1950.
El Dorado was the center of oil production, growing from 3,887 residents in 1920 to 16,421 in 1930. There were an estimated 30,000 people living there in 1925 during the oil boom. According to the Journal, lithium projects being planned for south Arkansas will require almost 6,000 jobs and more than 1,600 trucks by 2028. That could lead to solid population growth for El Dorado, the Golden’s Triangle’s business and cultural capital.
“Jan. 10, 1921, changed El Dorado forever with completion of Busey No. 1 well,” writes Arkansas historian Kenneth Bridges. “Dr. Samuel T. Busey, a physician and oil speculator, completed the drilling of a well one mile southwest of El Dorado. The discovery well touched off a wave of speculators seeking fame and fortune from oil. Busey No. 1 produced oil for only 45 days, but El Dorado changed from an isolated agricultural city to the oil capital of Arkansas.
“By 1923, El Dorado boasted 59 oil contracting companies, 13 oil distributors and refiners and 22 oil production companies. The city was flooded with so many people that no bed space was available for them, leading to whole neighborhoods of tents and hastily constructed shacks to be erected.”
Now, there’s another boom on the way as the Permian Basin of lithium calls Arkansas home. Lithium is sought after because it’s essential for electric-vehicle batteries. The Journal noted: “If the U.S. is to ease its dependence for lithium on countries such as China, it may need this quiet corner of southwest Arkansas to lead the way.”
The newspaper added: “An influx of workers and trucks could give Magnolia and nearby counties an economic shot in the arm after years of decline. But the prospect is also concerning, Magnolia Mayor Parnell Vann said, because the town is facing of shortage of new houses, and the region’s roads, water and sewage systems are unprepared.”