By 1884, Artesia was a boomtown. It sat on the M&O Railroad and was a busy center for business. Mississippi was a bit of a wild frontier in many ways, and Artesia embraced that image fully. It was known for all its saloons and the blind eye the town fathers appeared to turn to the rules of Prohibition. The Prohibition Presidential Platform was ignored, and the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were not active or remotely influential in the town. Artesia was riding high on the coattails of the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans and the prosperity of the price of cotton. Cash began to flow again after a post-Reconstruction depression, and the businesses in Artesia benefited. Beyond the gin and the cotton warehouses, the town had saloons, restaurants, and businesses on a busy main street.

While the town had grown affluent, whites were worried as they were outnumbered by their Black neighbors, whom they distrusted.