On August 25, 1896, two men began a 1,000-mile wagon ride on a hunting expedition from Arkansas to the rice fields of Louisiana where they spent some time at the farms of the Abbot brothers and W. W. Duson. One of those men became convinced that the Grand Prairie of Arkansas could also produce golden grain rice and he knew that he could grow rice on the prairies by irrigation. That man was W. H. Fuller. In 1904, he planted 70 acres of rice and produced 5,225 bushels of rough rice. As he yielded almost 75 bushels per acre from the appointed acres, he claimed the bonus of $1000. In 1903, Art and Verne Tindall, natives of Rock Island, Illinois, moved with their mother and father to Stuttgart. The two farmed rice near Crockett's Bluff, southeast of Stuttgart in the Grand Prairie. Successful there, they moved to Stuttgart in 1922 and farmed rice  on part of their 1,800 acres which bordered Elm Prong Mill Bayou. As Elm Prong Mill Bayou sometimes went dry in the summertime and wanting to increase their rice planting acreage and productivity, the two brothers conceived the idea in 1925 of establishing a storage reservoir to maintain the moist-soil conditions needed to grow rice. With no thought of attracting ducks, here was the germ of an idea that made the Stuttgart region a hunter's paradise. The idea came to fruition very quickly when in the winter of 1926 they were astonished at the number of wintering ducks congregating on their 450 acres of flooded timber reservoir after spending the night in the nearby rice fields. Their initial plan was to make the reservoir a refuge with no hunting, to make sure that the sportsmen always had good shooting at nearby lakes and watering places. However, they soon found that it was impossible to keep the poachers from poaching, with one poacher saying, “The ducks concentrated on the prairies around Stuttgart, and it looked like millions and millions.” Verne Tindall told the Stuttgart Daily Leader, “It was quite a sight to see. Eight to 10 acres of the reservoir would be a mass of ducks.” Because of the poaching, they decided they would lease the reservoir for duck hunting, hoping it would keep the poachers away, so  they leased it to Wallace Claypool, of Memphis, and Roger Crowe and Roy McCollum, of Stuttgart, for the duck seasons of 1927 and 1928.  And the rest is history for their reservoir was such an attraction for ducks that green-tree reservoirs were put in place by other farmers and Stuttgart became the "Duck Capital of the World."