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Down Among the Sugar Cane by W.E. Butler Louisiana Sugar Plantations & railroads
Down Among the Sugar Cane by W.E. Butler The story of Louisiana Sugar Plantations and their railroads
Hard Cover
266 pages
Copyright 1980
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
INTRODUCTION
Preface 2
The Story of Louisiana Sugar Cane 5
The Sugar Mills 11
Sugar Plantation Railroads in Louisiana 21
PART II
THE RIVER PLANTATIONS
I. The River 28
II. Allendale Plantation 30
III. Alma Plantation 34
IV. Armant Plantation 40
V. Catherine Plantation 43
VI. Cinclare Central Plantation 49
VII. Columbia Plantation 55
VIII. Cora-Texas Plantations 59
IX. Evergreen Plantation 67
X. Homestead Plantation 74
XI. Houmas Plantation 78
XII. Ingleside Plantation 85
XIII. Laura Plantation 86
XIV. Leon Godchaux Plantations 88
The Godchaux Plantation Railroads 92
Raceland Plantation 107
XV. Longview Plantation 109
XVI. Longwood Plantation 111
XVII. Murrell's Tally-Ho Plantation 120
XVIII. Myrtle Grove Plantation 127
XIX. Pecan Plantation and Syrup Factory 133
XX. Pelican State Plantation 134
XXI. Poplar Grove Plantation 135
XXII. South Side Plantation 141
XXIII. St. Louis Plantation 143
PART III
THE BAYOU PLANTATIONS
XXIV. The Bayous 150
XXV. Ardoyne Plantation 155
XXVI. Belle Alliance Plantation 160
XXVII. Enterprise Plantation 166
XXVIII. Erath and Vermilion Sugar Factories 175
XXIX. Golden Ranch Plantation 178
XXX. Levert-St. John Plantation 182
XXXI. Magnolia Plantation 189
XXXII. Meeker Sugar Factory 192
XXXIII. South Coast Corporation 195
Ashland Plantation 198
Georgia Plantation and Refinery 200
Oaklawn Plantation 206
Terrebonne Plantation 211
XXXIV. Southdown Plantation 216
XXXV. Sterling Sugar Factory 226
Shady Side Plantation 228
XXXVI. Westfield and Lula Plantations 229
Westfield Plantation Railroad 232
Lula Plantation Railroad 242
PART IV
APPENDIX
Other Sugar Plantations with Railroads 252
Glossary of Plantation Railroad Terms 259
Epilogue 260
Selected Bibliography 264
Credits 267
DUST JACKET INTRODUCTION:
In 1795, , Louisiana plantation owner Etienne de Borsuccessfully produced granulated sugar from boiling cane juice, and the agricultural economy of Louisiana changed forever.
The sugar industry eventually progressed from a process almost totally dependent on hand labor, grinding 250 tons of cane daily, to a mechanized system which now grinds as much as 6,000 tons of cane every twenty-four hours.
De Borextracted sugar from cane by a system called an open kettle mill, a process that was extremely slow. In 1822, Jean J. Coiron introduced a steam-powered sugar mill, and sugar plantations sprang up along Louisiana's rivers and bayous where only indigo and tobacco had been grown before.
The increased capacity for producing sugar called for new methods of transport, and in the 1880s, the little plantation trains, powered by steam locomotives, appeared across south Louisiana.
Narrow gauge tracks were laid where mule-drawn carts had once hauled cane from the fields to the mills. Up and down the Mississippi River and the bayous, the south Louisiana tranquility was broken by the shrill cries of engine whistles and the squeal of locomotive brakes.
The transport of this cane was so well facilitated by the small railroads that many people called the period the "golden era" of sugar cane. It was a time when each plantation had its own railroad and mill. It was the era when days of hard work during grinding season often ended with a "sugar house party" when groups of merry youngsters rode the little trains to the mills to taste the sweet cane and sample the thick, brown sugar.
But as the open kettle mills had made way for steam-powered mills, so did the little railroads move aside for more versatile transportation provided by gasoline-powered trucks and tractors. By the 1960s, most of Louisiana's little trains lay idle, their whistles hushed in the memories of the men and women who operated and rode them.
In his Down Among the Sugar Cane, the author takes his readers back to the "golden era" with description of a lifestyle long gone but never forgotten. From ten years of study and more than 100 personal interviews, he has compiled histories of over forty of Louisiana's sugar plantations. His portrayals of them include vestiges of by-gone days, including one-room plantation schoolhouses, quarterhouses, garconnieres, and those magnificent plantation mansions so much a part of the heritage of Louisiana and the South.
Butler, himself a railroad buff, also gives detailed and technical accounts of each railroad, its locomotives and other rolling stock.
In addition, more than 240 photographs tell a visual story about the plantations and railroads as they were decades ago and as they are now.
All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
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