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More lumber companieslaunched operationsin the reotonandacceleratedthe depletionof
thecypressand tupelo gum trees. The lumbermen used both thepullboat system and dunnage
railroads to systematically reducethe sin of the forest andclear-cut the land
As logging increased in Intensity, onecompany, the Ruddock Cypress Company, Ltd.
constructed one of the largest and most modern sawmills inthesouthern region of theUnited
States. Theplant, located at the mllltown of Ruddock en the Illinois Central operated until
June of 1902 when a fire totally destroyed themill. The fire raged out of control until
firefighters arrivedfrom New Orleans onthetrain(Picayune, 5 June 1902).
The cutting down of thetreescontinued ona major scale until the onset of the Great
Depression of the 1930s when themarket for cypress, or anyother wood, plummeted It
wasnotuntil the reorganized Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company renewed production in
1936 Ihat logging activity approached pre-1929 levels. From 1936 until 1956.when the
compan/s mill at Ponehatoula sawed its last cypress log, Louisiana Cypress lumber
Company produced anaverage of 14.3 million board feet of lumber per year (LCLC Monthly
Statements, July 1936-Februery 1956).
The closing ofthemillatPonehatoula brought toan end the sixty-four year history ofthe
cypress Industry in ihe Western Basin ofLake Pontchartrain. However, thelegacy ofthose
years lives on.
Aerial Infra-red photographs show clearly the ruthless efficiency ofthe loggers. The
entire region isscarred, either with the circular patterns gouged by pullboat logging or the
parallel linescut by dunnage railroads.
Pullboat logging required "swampers'' tosnake cut logs from deep In the swamp, as much
as three thousand feet, to the boat As the logs were being winched in, they cutnarrow
canals inthe vulnerable surface ofthe swamp. By the time the loggers finished cutting a
section, these "cuts," astheywere called, were often asdeep asfive tosix feet (Bourgeois.
1983).
The damage done by thedunnage railroads, while different, was equally asdestructive.
The dunnage railroad bed. made ofsawdust and wood shavings, disrupted thenatural flow of
water through the swamp. Also, this method used an overhead skidder towinch inthe logs
from the swamp. The overhead skidder could transport above the ground asmany asfive or
six large logs tothe railroad cars. Unfortunately, the moving logs bowled over or maimed
trees leftstanding, butinthepath ofthelogs.
The wounding of the environment is an on-going process. Perhaps themost harmful
resultof logging istheincrease in the flow of brackish water from lake Pontchartrain Into
areas of theswamp where fresh water once dominated. The problem has been made more
acute by the subsidence of the land, a result of the loss ofthesoil-holding root systems of
the trees (Saucfer, 1963).
The demise ofthe lumber industry meant more than achange In the land. Itsignaled the
reduction ofman's presence In theswamp. Gone was an Industry that employed hundreds of
workers tolling inthemillsorcutting trees intheswamp. Gone, too, was aunique system