The original Hubbard farm was located on 949.44 acres three miles south of Catron, Mo. in New Madrid County. Fred and Martha Hubbard purchased the farm in 1908 and named it Flagland Ranch. Flagland Ranch was located in an area of southeast Missouri that had just been made arable because of the Little River Drainage District’s reclamation project, draining the swamplands in the Missouri Bootheel. The Hubbards already owned a dairy and fruit farm in Urbana, Il. and purchased the farm land in Missouri as an investment. Flagland Ranch, later the name was changed to Flagland Stock Farm, grew a variety of crops, such as corn, alfalfa, cotton and wheat, and raised a variety of livestock, such as cattle and hogs. The Hubbard’s remained in Illinois and relied on tenants to farm the land. In 1918, the Hubbard’s hired supervisor for Flagland Ranch, Richard Trimble, who moved from Urbana Il. to live on the Missouri farm. However by 1921 they replaced Trimble with Joseph Heath, who moved on to the property with his family. After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in Agriculture in 1931, Fred and Martha Hubbard’s son, Ralph Hubbard, moved to Missouri to manage the farm. In the midst of the Great Depression, the family needed the Missouri farm to become profitable, or they would lose both the Missouri and Illinois farms. Ralph moved into the farmhouse with the Heath family and soon fell in love with the Heath’s daughter Alma, even though the two were both engaged to other people at the time. Ralph and Alma married in 1933. In 1934, Joseph Heath purchased a land adjacent to the original Hubbard farm, and he and his wife, Mattie, moved out of the original farmhouse. In 1949, the Hubbard’s were able to pay off the mortgage for the Flagland Stock Farm, and Ralph Hubbard purchased an additional farm near Risco, Mo., which he called Shady Grove. Hubbard purchased Shady Grove because it had a sandy soil, as opposed to Flagland Ranch’s gumbo soil. Hubbard wanted to experiment and see what he could grow there. After the deaths of Joseph and Mattie Heath, their farmland was added to the Flagland Stock Farm. Upon Ralph Hubbard’s death in 1983, the Flagland Stock Farm and Shady Grove were incorporated as Heath-Hubbard Farms Inc. Heath-Hubbard Farms Inc. is still family run and consists of a total 1244 acres of land. Still worked by renters, the Heath-Hubbard Farms grow a variety of crops, including rice, corn, and soybeans.