St. Mary Parish
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A severe decline in sugar
production occurred after 1911, and in the 1920s the sugar industry was
confronted with extinction. Bad weather contributed to the troubles of
the planter. In 1911, there were severe early frosts, and in 1912 floods
damaged crops. Furthermore, plant disease, particularly mosaic, swept
through the canefields with devastating effect. Other problems were the
higher cost of labor, especially after the wartime economy offered
better paying jobs to workers in the canefields. Prices for sugar were
unusually low, and a new Democratic administration in Washington, that
of Woodrow Wilson, passed a bill which abolished the tariff on sugar.
The world war brightened the outlook of sugar planters
temporarily. Congress repealed the free sugar bill, and an international
shortage raised sugar prices to their highest level since 1889.
Furthermore, in 1916 Louisiana planters had a bountiful crop.
Nevertheless, the Federal government issued wartime controls which
limited profits during the conflict.
After the removal of
controls, the sugar market entered a period of chaos. The expectation
was that the price of sugar would rise on the world market. Instead, it
collapsed and caught planters, manufacturers, and bankers by surprise.
Louisiana sugar planters and manufacturers entered the 1920s in a severe
depression from which many would not recover.
This economic
decline increased the movement toward consolidation of sugar factories
but at the same time brought about a countermovement in the breakup of
large cane plantations. Some plantations were abandoned; others were
broken up into smaller holdings (Sitterson 1953:343-360).
By
1917, when the United States entered the world war, there were only two
sugar manufacturers in the project area. Shadyside, with quadruple
effects, vacuum pans, and centrifugals, produced almost 11 million
pounds of sugar. Oscar Zenor’s Avalon, which recently had taken over
Luckland, had double effects, vacuum pans, and centrifugals: Zenor
produced almost 6,000,000 pounds of sugar in 1917 (A. Bouchereau
1917:13).
As for cultivation of cane in the project area in
1917, Shadyside’s fields included: Fairfax -- 800 acres; Little Mound --
230 acres; Grandwood -- 800 acres; and, Calumet -- 1,200 acres. Oscar
Zenor’s cane planting fields were Avalon -- 1,000 acres and Luckland --
1,200 acres. Zenor also was involved in cane growing up the bayou as
President of the Cypremort Land Company, which probably acted as a
holding company for several plantations outside the project area
(Gilmore 1917:38-40).
Two maps in the St. Mary Parish Courthouse
present a picture of the project area in 1920, just before the economic
deluge began. The first map shows the extensive plantations of the
Shadyside Company, Limited, and includes Calumet Plantation and the
entire project area above that holding. The second map shows the
waterfront at Avalon Plantation, which seems more like a tiny village
than a plantation. A bridge across the Teche, extensive wharfage, a
sugar factory, and a total of about 34 structures were depicted (Figure
16).
The collapse of the price of sugar in 1920 particularly
affected the enterprises of Oscar Zenor, the proprietor of Avalon
Plantation. By 1923, Avalon had ceased the manufacture of sugar and
confined its operations to the planting of cane (Louisiana Planter
1923:498-499). After 1923, no processing plant in the project area
existed, and structures associated with sugar production at Luckland and
Avalon began to deteriorate.
Shadyside continued production
through most of the 1920s at its factory outside of the project area; in
1928, it closed (Louisiana Planter 1929:49). The international economic
depression of 1929 severely increased the troubles of a sugar industry
which already was in crisis, but somehow Shadyside was able eventually
to resume operation and to transfer production to a location in
Franklin, where it continued production into the post World War II era
(St. Mary Parish Planning Board 1949:104-105). Its earlier competitors
in the project area, however, never resumed the manufacture of sugar. As
maps indicate (Figure 17), the structures in the project vicinity
associated with sugar production began slowly to disintegrate and, as
the years passed, to disappear.
Examination of twentieth century
maps and aerial photographs graphically illustrate changing settlement
patterns within the project area during the 1930s through 1960s. By
1930, virtually all of the project area upriver from Section 49 was
uninhabited cultivated fields or woods. The 1930 Corps of Engineers
aerial photograph of the area, and the 1935 topographic quadrangle,
indicate only two structures were located in this upriver half of the
project area. One was at the intersection of Zenor Road, the east bank
road which parallels the bayou, and the road in Section 50 which crossed
the bayou. Based on available USGS topographic quadrangles, this
building was razed between 1954 and 1966. The other structure was a
small boathouse at the head of a small slip in Section 49. That
boathouse was torn down prior to 1944, when a second set of aenal
photographs were flown over the area.
Two additional
mid-nineteenth century structures were located near the upstream end of
the project area. These two unidentified structures were located within
Section 54, near the Bayou Teche cut adjacent to the Wax Lake Outlet.
Based on the available topographic quadrangles, they were constructed
during the late 1930s or early 1940s, and they were destroyed in the
1950s or 1960s. Their remains are located at Calumet (16SMY67), one of
the sites identified during the current investigations.
The downstream half of the
project area, within Avalon, Luckland, and Moru Plantations, changed
considerably after the 1920s. A 1920 plan of Avalon Plantation, north of
Bayou Teche, depicted 36 structures, including a sugar house, a large
wharf, a bridge, numerous domestic structures, and outbuildings (Figure
16). In 1930, when aerial photographs were taken of the bayou (Figure
18), all of the structures remained except for one. The 1930 aerial
photograph depicts approximately 37 structures in the vicinity of the
adjacent downstream Luckland Plantation, also including a sugar house, a
bridge, and domestic residences and outbuildings. Approximately 15
structures were associated with Moro Plantation (Figure 18).
The
1920s collapse of the sugar industry resulted in the abandonment and
destruction of these plantation complexes. The 1941 USGS topographic
quadrangle depicts only eight Avalon Plantation, 13 Luckland Plantation,
and eight Moro Plantation buildings north of the Teche. While this map
may not depict all outbuildings, it clearly demonstrates the abandonment
of these complexes. No more than six structures, including outbuildings,
are present at Avalon on the 1944 aerial photograph; the sugar house is
destroyed, the bridge no longer is functional, and the wharf no longer
is standing. The 1954 USGS topographic quadrangle notes only five Avalon
Plantation, 11 Luckland Plantation, and eight Moro Plantation structures
surviving in the project area. The 1966 USGS topographic quadrangle
depicts only two outbuildings, both on Luckland Plantation, remaining
north of the Teche in the project area. One deteriorating historic shed
currently remains standing within the Luckland Plantation area. The
project area at Moro, Luckland, and Avalon Plantations currently is
woodland, wooded pasture, and overgrown fields.
The final stage in the widespread use of steamboats along Bayou Teche consisted of "jobbing," where steamboat captains conducted a variety of charter services for local plantations and businesses. These jobber boats, which operated between the 1890s and the mid-1930s, undertook transportation jobs, often for local plantations, which the railroad system was incapable or unwilling to perform. For example, Brasseaux (1979:219) noted:
...from 1907 to 1922, the B. C. Taylor line of steamboats, which were under contract to the Stirling Plantation manager, freighted coal, fertilizer, and cooperage materials to, and rice, sugar cane, and mollasses [sic] from, plantations along the Teche. Moreover, from 1915 to 1922, the Taylor boats delivered annually approximately 1.5 million barrels of fuel oil to local sugar mills.
In addition, a few companies, such as the Consolidated Companies of Plaquemine, and the Interstate Wholesale Grocery Company of Thibodaux, operated steamboats on the Teche during the 1920s through early 1940s which regularly delivered groceries to wholesalers (Brasseaux 1979).
In addition to charter steamboats, some plantations along
Bayou Teche owned and operated plantation steamboats. For example,
within the project area, the sternwheeier Peri was owned by the Oscar
Zenor family, of Moro, Luckland, and Avalon Plantations (Figure 19).
This 102 ft long, 25.5 ft wide steamer weighed 71 gross tons (64 net
tons), and had a 4 ft depth of hull. It was built in 1893 at Berwick,
Louisiana, and its homeport was listed as Brashier, Louisiana. The
vessel was classified as a towboat (Merchant Vessels of the U.S. Bureau
of Navigation, Department of Commerce). Since no railroad spur was
constructed between these plantations and the railroad, the Peri formed
a necessary transportation link between the plantations and the
railroad. According to Maria Guarisco, a granddaughter of Oscar Zenor,
during the late 1920s or the 1930s, the Peri also was used for
entertainment and parties. It subsequently was sold to an individual
near Cincinnati, Ohio, who purportedly converted it into a pleasure
vessel (Maria Guarisco, personal communication 1990).
Finally,
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Teche was
used as a transportation route for logging boats. These boats
transported logs from the cypress swamps in the Atchafalaya Basin to
sawmills along Bayou Teche. The Amy Hewes, owned by the Hewes Lumber
Company of Jeanerette, was the last logging steamboat to operate on the
Teche. It transported its final raft of cypress logs on the Teche in
1943, terminating commercial use of the bayou by steamboats (Brasseaux
1979; Goodwin and Jones 1986).
While railroads often serviced
individual plantations and businesses during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century, the modern rail system is more closely tied to
distribution centers, such as Morgan City. Many of the commercial
transportation needs have been met by vehicular transportation. However,
Bayou Teche has continued to play an important role in the
transportation of cargo in the region. For example, between 1979 and
1986, an annual average of 635,745 tons of cargo have been transported
on the Teche. These cargoes principally included marine shells, crude
petroleum, and sugar (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1989). Modern
commercial businesses within the project area vicinity include a
shipyard, and an oil distribution facility.
Extracted 24 Jun 2020 by Norma Hass from "Historical and Archeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana" by Defense Technical Information Center, published 02 Jun 1991, pages 45-105.
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