Did you know? Tomato is an unincorporated community in Mississippi County, Arkansas. It is located on Island No. 25 in the Mississippi River 11.5 miles east-southeast of Blytheville, and is one of the few communities on the Lower Mississippi River that lies outside the protection of the mainline levee system. It was first established as a shipping point for produce from the truck farms in the area. There are two versions as to how the community originally known as Canadian Reach acquired the name Tomato. According to one version, it came about in 1895 when a postal representative came to officially record the name of the post office. A Mr. Coleman was operating the general store. He had 10 children and each child was assigned daily chores. Lettie Coleman was putting together an order of groceries for a customer at the time and it was late in the day. Since her father and the government representative couldnt decide on a name, she picked up a can of tomatoes and said, “Oh! Why dont you just call it Tomato!” Which they did. The other tale has it this way: as steamboats traveled up and down the river, mail and packages were delivered at the landing. A large tomato packing box was nailed to a large cottonwood tree and mail was placed in the box. Since the box had a tomato stamped on it, it was just natural to call the place Tomato. The town was said at one time to have “the smallest post office in the world.” A man named Jones was postmaster at the time, and when his house burned down, he moved into Tomato’s post office – whereupon the post office moved into a tiny smokehouse that Jones owned. The community was prone to major flooding due to its location so near the Mississippi River. Out of necessity, the town buildings were put on log rollers and moved away from the flood waters on several occasions. As a result of the Flood of 1937 and the crumbling riverbank, the town was relocated approximately one and a half miles from its original site. After several such moves, many people began to call Tomato a “portable town.” In 1952, the town consisted of a church, a schoolhouse, a post office, two stores, and several houses. One of the last stores, owned by A. J. Mitcherson, was moved three times before disappearing into the Mississippi River sometime after 1968. Though river bank stabilization work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s made the area safer and more secure, the town slowly declined. As of 2010, the town, which once claimed 350 citizens, has all but disappeared into the river.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:05:46 +0000
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