Lights of the Delta continue to benefit Mississippi County
For several years, cotton gin owner Bo Adams put up Christmas displays on his property in Mississippi County. As the years passed, the displays grew larger and more elaborate and along with it came bigger and bigger crowds.
Weary of the large crowds and work involved, Adams decided in 2001 he didn’t want to erect the 14 displays he owned on his property, but he wanted the displays to stay in Mississippi County. That’s when Lights of the Delta was born, Executive Director George Hubbard told Talk Business & Politics.
By: George Jared
Talk Business & Politics
For several years, cotton gin owner Bo Adams put up Christmas displays on his property in Mississippi County. As the years passed, the displays grew larger and more elaborate and along with it came bigger and bigger crowds.
Weary of the large crowds and work involved, Adams decided in 2001 he didn’t want to erect the 14 displays he owned on his property, but he wanted the displays to stay in Mississippi County. That’s when Lights of the Delta was born, Executive Director George Hubbard told Talk Business & Politics.
Each year, the massive displays draw up to 35,000 tourists into the county, he said. Lights of the Delta is displayed at the former Blytheville Air Force base. The 1.5-mile trek now has 56 major displays and several smaller ones, he said. It costs about $160,000 per season to put on
About 80% of the people who visit are from outside the county, he said. Other parts of Northeast Arkansas, western Tennessee, and the bootheel of Missouri are the primary areas they pull tourists from. People from at least 40 different states and at least 60 counties in Arkansas came to see the lights last year, Hubbard said.
The displays are open to the public just after Thanksgiving each year and run until several days after Christmas.
“Our weekends are our busiest nights,” he said. “If the weather is good, we can bring in as many as 5,000 people on a weekend. We had several reasons why we wanted to do this. We understood the positive economic impacts it could have, and it was also a quality-of-life metric that we could add to the community,” said Hubbard, who is not paid for his work as director.
Gauging the total impact the lights have on the county’s economy is a challenge, Mississippi County Regional Chamber of Commerce Liz Smith said. No study has ever been conducted to study the impacts, but several businesses including restaurants near the former air base report significant upswings in customers during the season, she added.
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