"[The state of Mississippi] sold 774,000 acres of the Delta to a railroad that had not laid a single mile of track and owned not a single locomotive. But this road did have a franchise and a state tax exemptions worth millions of dollars, and it ultimately became the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, the Y&MV, later called "the yellow dog" in blues songs after the color of its trains. The Y&MV was wholly owned by the Illinois Central and shared the same directors.A few weeks after the first sale, the state sold 706,000 acres of Delta land for $2,500 in cash plus nearly worthless old levee board bonds that had a face value of only $45,954.22. Title to this land went through several hands before ending up with the Southern Railroad, controlled by J.P. Morgan."
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
John Barry, 1998
