The wealth of the antebellum South was based on growing “white gold,” and Greenwood prospered into the “Cotton Capital of the World” because of its location. In the heart of the Delta and a high points on the Yazoo River, Greenwood was a prime shipping point to connect with the Mississippi River ports of Vicksburg, New Orleans, and St. Louis.

Today, Greenwood houses the second largest U.S. cotton exchange, with about one fifth of the North America’s crop warehoused and sold by Staplcotn.

In recent years a different kind of cash crop called catfish has marked the Delta landscape just as uniquely as cotton fields. Thousands of square ponds now stretch over the flat lands surrounding Greenwood in Leflore County. Approximately 72% of the nation’s farm-raised catfish is harvested in Mississippi, with 96% of that from the Delta.