Editing Missouri Bootheel (section)

{{Short description|Geographic feature of Missouri, US}}
{{Other uses|Bootheel (disambiguation){{!}}Bootheel}}
{{use mdy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox settlement
|name=Missouri Bootheel
|image_map=Missouri Bootheel locator v1.svg
|map_caption=Location of the bootheel region centered on {{Coord|36|15|N|89|51|W|scale:1000000|display=inline,title}}
|unit_pref=US
|area_footnotes=<ref name=2010census>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/cph-2-1.pdf|title=United States Summary: 2010, Population and Housing Unit Counts, 2010 Census of Population and Housing|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|pages=V&ndash;2, 1 & 41 (Tables 1 & 18)|date=September 2012|access-date=February 7, 2014}}</ref>
|area_land_sq_mi=1708.45
|population_footnotes=<ref name="Census2019">{{cite web |title=Population, Population Change, and Estimated Components of Population Change: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2019 (NST-EST2019-alldata) |url=https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-state-total.html |website=Census.gov |publisher=United States Census Bureau |access-date=8 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200126071436/https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-state-total.html |archive-date=January 26, 2020 |url-status=live }}</ref>
|population_as_of=2019
|population_total=62012
|population_density_sq_mi=36.3
}}
[[File:Missouri Bootheel topo map v1.png|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Topographic map]] of the bootheel and surrounding areas of Missouri and neighboring states.]]
The '''Missouri Bootheel''' is a [[Salient (geography)|salient]] (protrusion) located in the southeasternmost part of the U.S. state of [[Missouri]], extending south of 36°30′ north [[latitude]], so called because its shape in relation to the rest of the state resembles the heel of a boot.  Strictly speaking, it is composed of some or all of the counties of [[Dunklin County, Missouri|Dunklin]], [[New Madrid County, Missouri|New Madrid]], and [[Pemiscot County, Missouri|Pemiscot]].  However, the term is locally used to refer to the entire southeastern lowlands of Missouri located within the [[Mississippi Embayment]], which includes parts of [[Butler County, Missouri|Butler]], [[Mississippi County, Missouri|Mississippi]], [[Ripley County, Missouri|Ripley]], [[Scott County, Missouri|Scott]], [[Stoddard County, Missouri|Stoddard]] and extreme southern portions of [[Cape Girardeau County, Missouri|Cape Girardeau]] and [[Bollinger County, Missouri|Bollinger]] counties.  The largest city in the region is [[Kennett, Missouri|Kennett]].

Until the 1920s, the district was a wheat-growing area of family farms. Following the invasion of the [[boll weevil]], which ruined the cotton crop in Arkansas, planters moved in. They bought up the land for conversion to cotton commodity crops, bringing along thousands of [[sharecropper]]s.<ref name="Inside the Fifty States Today">{{cite book |first1=Neal R. |last1=Peirce |first2=Jerry |last2=Hagstrom |title=The Book of America: Inside the Fifty States Today |location=New York |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company|Norton]] |year=1983 |page=594 |isbn=0-393-01639-0 }}</ref> After mechanization of agriculture and other changes in the 1930s, many black families left the area to go north in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]]. These counties have predominantly white populations in the 21st century, although some have a significant number of black residents.