Blues Trail Marker #6

Dockery Farms is widely regarded to be the birthplace of the blues. Though shrouded in mystery as to where exactly blues had its beginnings, there is widespread agreement among artists, fans and scholars of this music that Dockery Farms was important for the development and dissemination of the blues throughout the nation. This historic plantation community, located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, was established by Will Dockery in 1895 using a grant of 1,000 dollars and family connections in Memphis. 

Starting from a lumber yard near the Sunflower River outside of the settlement of Cleveland, Mississippi. By the 1920s and ’30s, Will Dockery and his workers had built most of the structures that still stand to this day. Unusual for the time, he offered fair contracts to laborers, enabling some to prosper, in spite of Jim Crow laws promulgating Mississippi at the time. 

The Black Americans who came to Dockery Farms to cultivate cotton created a culture through their work that inspired Blues music. As the years went by the involvement of notable blues figures such as Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton and Howlin’ Wolf cemented it's reputation.

Charlie Patton, the Father of the Blues, was on the Dockery Plantation for nearly thirty years intermittently.  He influenced many of those who followed him, including Robert Johnson who sold his soul at the infamous Devil's Crossroads.