Business & Industry

Fields, Steel and More
Living and working in Arkansas is a natural advantage in itself. “The Natural State” has one of the lowest overall per capita tax burdens in the entire country, and the Greater Blytheville Area area offers even more. Lower-cost living, pro-business leadership and plenty of space opens the doors for a variety of professional services and retail businesses. Wherever you go, you will find a personal touch that makes doing congenial and easy.  

The Blytheville area is also a bustling hive of industrial activity, with a diversified industrial base led by the cotton and steel industries. Among all counties nationwide, Mississippi County ranks first in steel production and second in the production of cotton.  

The unusually rich soil and prime location near the Mississippi River, the cotton industry is the area’s oldest stock and trade, and is steeped in Delta history.  Today hundreds of workers in the area still are employed in the planting, harvesting, ginning, buying/selling and shipping of one the world’s most essential products.  Modern technology—from irrigation systems to state-of-the-art implements—has drastically changed the dynamics of the cotton business in Mississippi County, home to the largest cotton gin in the world, which is located just west of the Greater Blytheville Area area in the community of Leachville.  

The steel industry arrived in the late 1980s, drawn to the area’s centralized location and unique transportation infrastructure that includes the Mississippi River. Today, the industry is responsible for about 5,000 of the area’s manufacturing jobs, and since steel is produced from scrap metal shipped via the river to local plants, the county is home to the largest recyclers in the world. The variety of steel products produced in the area range from I-beams to steel coils to structural tubing. Other companies are diverse and the products they produce are assorted. From high-end electrical tools, to greeting cards, to automotive components, to margarine products — it is all being produced everyday in Mississippi County.