Biggers, Arkansas

As with many other small towns in the area, Biggers had its largest population in 1930. The Great Depression hit hard, and people moved away from failing farms, falling prices, and government intrusion that sometimes took land and removed people, or plowed crops into the ground.

In some cattle-producing and hog-producing areas, the federal government hired shooters to kill a designated number of meat animals in order to raise prices. The best and the brightest brought to Washington’s new New Deal agencies must not have considered that people without jobs were also people without money, and what good were higher prices when no one could pay?

Biggers population was 466 in 1930. By 1960, the population had dropped to 274. The 2010 official population was 347. According to figures from the 2000 census, 13.5 percent of families and 17.3 percent of the overall population lived below the poverty line.

Biggers is in the eastern part of Randolph County. Randolph is in the northeast part of Arkansas and sits against Missouri. Pocahontas is the county seat. In 2010, 17,969 people lived in the county. The county’s largest population was in 1940, when 18,319 people lived there.

Whiskey and a railroad built Biggers.

“In 1889, B. F. Bigger, the namesake for the town, bought land, established a ferry crossing over the Current River, and built a distillery. Due to the completion of the Southern Missouri and Arkansas Railroad line from Hoxie (Lawrence County) to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, in 1901, the town of Biggers coalesced around the train depot. That same year, the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (Frisco) system purchased the line and carried it on to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, thus creating a number of market opportunities for the citizens of Biggers.”

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=7086

Facebook says there is nothing to do in Biggers.

https://www.facebook.com/places/Things-to-do-in-Biggers-Arkansas/108124839208601/

A satellite view is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3358611,-90.798788,2441m/data=!3m1!1e3

Farmland. Lots and lots of farmland.