Rice Cultivation on the Ogeechee River

RICE CULTIVATION ON THE OGEECHEE RIVER. The production of rice on Bryan Neck utilized upstream fresh water and the tidal influences of the Ogeechee River. Heavy wooden trunks, or tidegates, along the levees and embankments in the rice fields allowed the inflow and outflow of fresh water in an elaborate system of irrigation and hydraulics during the summer growing season.

A network of canals provided access for the tending of the fields by large forces of slave workers. The peak of this activity was in 1860 when 1.6 million pounds of rice was shipped from Bryan Neck plantations along the river. With a ready supply of labor no longer available after the Civil War, along with a series of destructive hurricanes in the 1880s, rice cultivation on the Ogeechee ended by 1900.