Full document / COSOC-W-86-002 - the National Sea Grant Library

Estuarine and Coastal Management • Toolsofthe
Trade. Proceedingsof the TenthNationalConference
ofTheCoastal Society. October 12-15,1986. New
Orleans.LA. Copyright by TheCoastalSociety
1987.
CHANGING PATTERNS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY IN
THE WESTERN BASIN OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN
Roman J. Heleniak and Charles A. Dranguet
Department of History andGovernment
Southeastern Louisiana University
Hammond, LA 7CM02
Atone time, agreat baldcypress (Imodium distlchum) and lupelo gum (NY5Sa.BtflvT8)
forest blanketed thelowlands which begin south of Ponchatoula. Louisiana, and rings allof
lake Maurepas and thewestern shore of Lake Pontchartrain. (Flo, I). Now, most of the
trees aregone, either thevictim ofthesawman's work, or theslow death caused bychanges
tn theecosystem. The region resembles nothing less than a battlefield, one in which the
major combatants were man end nature, and one in which there were no winners, it is
difficult to Imagine that this forbidding landscape once bustled witheconomic activity end
that hundreds of people made their permanent homes invillages located In theheart of the
swamp.
More then seventy years ago, September 28,1915, tobeprecise, it appeared that man
had gained the upper-hand In hisstruggle to survive and prosper In the cypress forest, for
human activity then farexceeded present-daylevels
Some of those working in the swamp were employees of the Illinois Central Railroad
which cuts a forty-five mile swath through the western edge of the basin. Maintenance
crews manned section stations established every fiveor six miles along the right-of-way
and lived in quarters at the sites.
Inaddition to the railroad section stations,there were severalvillagesadjaoent to the
lin8: Frenler, Ruddock, rtanchec (rtters Post Office) and Strader. Some of these people also
workedfor the IllinoisCentral,some farmed, and otherswere employed In someaspect of
Ihe lumber Industry. Many of the lattercould b8 found toiling deep in the swamps sawing
cypress and tupelogum. primarily the former. By 1915, the lumber Industry reigned as
the economic mainstay of the region and the increasing efficiency of logging operations
749