COTTON PLANT, Ark. – Patients in Arkansas are still not able to buy medical marijuana. But, there is a cultivation facility that is actively growing the plant. Bold Team, LLC has set up shop in the Woodruff County town of Cotton Plant.

The downtown drag is lined with empty buildings and street signs falling apart. It’s a far cry from the Cotton Plant of several decades ago.

“I can remember 6 grocery stores from that end of town to this end of town,” Cotton Plant treasurer Doris Wright said.

Wright and Mayor Clara Herston-Brown are both from Cotton Plant. At the beginning of the year, they took over City Hall. They say that’s when they fully understood how many bills the town had.

“We are almost a half million dollars in debt. We didn’t know that until we got here,” Herston-Brown said.

Herston-Brown says this would be a dead town if not for the medical marijuana industry.

“The doors would have been closed and the water department would have been sold,” Herston-Brown said.

Their bright light, on a rainy day, one of the state’s first cultivation facilities up in running on the outskirts of Cotton Plant.

“When somebody said Bold Team is coming, I said, oh my god we’re going to live,” Wright said.

They say they haven’t seen financial revenue yet, but they are patiently waiting and are hopeful it will help grow their city.

“Wouldn’t it be nice for us to have just a little grocery store and a small dollar store?” Wright asked.

They hope with the financial gain the cultivation facility will have, they will first pay off the town’s debts, then work to restore the community.

“It is just a miracle to us. The Lord just gave it to us,” Wright explains.

Herston-Brown doesn’t know exactly how much of a percentage the city will be getting from that cultivation facility once the medical marijuana sales start rolling in.