1991 Chapter 5 Historic Setting

The Decline of the Project Area, 1911 and After

Deterioration of Plantation Complexes

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 Congress repealed the free sugar bill, and an international shortage raised sugar prices to their highest level since 1889.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.

Twentieth Century Navigation of Bavou Teche

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.