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a JEFFERSON DAVIS PARISH article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
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a JEFFERSON DAVIS PARISH article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, October 28, 1997
From there, the first trains were taken on a boat to Galveston until the 1880s, when the road was completed west to Lake Charles. There it was joined with other short-haul railroads that eventually became the Southern Pacific system.
New Orleans merchants had developed a strong interest in building a railroad westward into Texas soon after the annexation of Texas to the Union in 1845. The Louisiana Constitution of 1845, however, had placed impediments in the way of organizing corporations other than for political or municipal purposes. A constitutional convention in 1853 produced a new state constitution that authorized the formation of railroad corporations within the state and the expropriation of lands for a right-of-way.
The New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Railroad was soon chartered, and construction of a line from New Orleans westward began almost immediately. By 1857, the line had reached Berwick Bay, about 100 miles west of New Orleans. From there, the railroad was to be extended to Washington in St. Landry Parish, and then to a point on the Sabine River "most favorable to the purpose of continuing said road through the State of Texas to El Paso on the Rio Grande." Further construction, however, encountered delays, and the advent of the Civil War and federal occupation of much of the coastal area of Louisiana thereafter prevented additional construction.
When the Civil War began, Louisiana and Confederate officials wanted to maintain a trade connection with Texas, the source of important materiel for the war effort. The Confederacy thought that Texas could supply a large amount of beef and other meat for the troops, as well as grains and fruits. Without rail connections, this made steamer and schooner ports especially valuable.
Unfortunately for the Confederates, the Federals declared a blockade of the Louisiana and Texas coast in the summer of 1861. Running the blockade was haphazard at best, so regular shipments of goods and supplies from Texas were interrupted. The only inland communication between southern Texas and New Orleans at this time was a stage operated three times a week by J. B. Price from New Iberia to Lake Charles and then on to Niblett's Bluff on the Sabine River.
In March, 1862, a route nearer the coast was opened. A stage ran 50 miles from New Iberia to the Lopez ferry on the Mermentau River. From there, the steam packet Cricket traveled through Lake Arthur and Grand Lake to Callahan's Bluff near the river's mouth. The route then ran along the beach ridge to the mouth of the Calcasieu River and, from there along the beach to Sabine Pass. Steamboats and schooners sailed from Sabine Pass to Beaumont where trains for Houston were available.
Convoluted as it was, that route was not the best way to carry on any commerce, and so a new push began to try to build a railroad from Orange, Texas to New Iberia, a distance of about 117 miles. Businessmen wanted it because it would promote trade. The military wanted it because they needed the supplies.
The New Orleans Daily Picayune called the construction a military necessity, saying, "Its construction is like furnishing our government with an army where she now has none. It will save the national treasury millions of money; preserve the lives of hundreds of our brave soldiers, and give ample facilities for the protection of many hundreds of miles of our seaboard and frontier. Were Texas attacked by the Federals, our brave Louisiana troops could speedily fly to her relief. Were New Orleans in danger, thousands of stalwart Texans in a few hours would be with us ready to deal death and destruction to a common foe."
By March 30, 1862, the railroad operating as the New Orleans and Texas, had enough capital to begin calling for bids on grading, bridging, and laying track. In order to dispel fears that workers would be involved in a military action, the railroad noted that the track would pass "through the Prairies of Calcasieu, a region of country perfectly healthy and abundantly supplied with provisions, being adjacent to the great stock and grain growing region of Texas, and safe from invasion, the Coast of the Gulf being lined with impassable marsh."
A month later, New Orleans fell to Union troops, and with it fell the railroad plans.
The political confusion and the economic chaos of the reconstruction era further delayed rail expansion. In 1878, Charles Morgan, shortly before his death, acquired the properties of the Great Western and reorganized his holdings as the Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Co. Morgan planned to build his railroad "from the terminus of Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad on the east side of Berwick's Bay, by the most eligible route to the State of Texas, with a branch or branches to form connections with the districts of country on (the) Red River ... and which said railroad shall be constructed in such a manner that it will be fitted to serve for the main trunk of a line of railroad to be continuous between the city of New Orleans, Texas and the States on the Pacific Ocean. "
Morgan's interest in building a railroad stemmed from the fact the he had been losing big money each summer when Galveston imposed yellow fever quarantines on his steamships coming out of New Orleans.
Morgan's company resumed rail construction from Berwick Bay, and, in 1881, reached Vermilionville (Lafayette), at the edge of the prairie. Meanwhile, a Texas and New Orleans Railroad which had been completed from Houston to Orange, Texas, in 1861, resumed construction eastward under the name of the Louisiana Western Railroad. The rail gap between New Orleans and Houston was closed with the completion of the line between Orange and Vermilionville in 1881.
The first trains reached Jennings in late 1882 and were running through the town on a regular schedule by 1883. Since there were few settlements when the railroad reached southwest Louisiana, the Southern Pacific company placed stations five miles apart, thinking that towns would grow up around each of them. Some towns grew, some didn't. But still the place names are there. Dotting the rail line west from Lafayette, are Scott, Duson, Rayne, Crowley, Estherwood, Midland, Mermentau, Jennings, Roanoke, Welsh, Lacassine, Iowa, Chloe, and Lake Charles.
It was a long and hard journey from New Orleans in the early days. It began early in the morning and would not to end until late in the evening. In the first place those tiny wood-burning engines couldn't travel too fast with their five passenger cars along with a combination mail and baggage car.
In an 1887 article in Harper's Monthly, Rebecca Harding Davis described crossing the swamps between New Orleans and Morgan City: "The ... track ran through interminable swamps of giant cypresses, magnolias. and fig trees. Their myriads of gray trunks stood knee-high in water, opening in silent vistas on either side. Overhead, huge vicious coils of vines knotted these bare columns together. It was March, but there was no coy, tender approach of spring here. Nature was a savage--fierce, prolific. The very leaves burst open here like clots of blood or an angry glare of white; even the thickets of saplings were hoary as with age. Strange red and orange birds flashed through the somber recesses; now and then a huge alligator rose out of the plane of slimy water, stared at the train with dead eyes, and plunged into it again."
Aside from the perils of nature, there were no bridges spanning the Mississippi or Atchafalaya rivers, and the trains had to be dismantled and put on ferries, then reassembled on the opposite side. Once under way, the old steam engines had to stop a dozen or so times to take on water for their boilers.
To get from New Orleans to the Pacific, was an even bigger adventure, requiring connections with different rail operators all along the way. The Louisiana Western Railroad, traveling through Morgan City and up the Teche, connected New Orleans to Lafayette. The Louisiana & Texas Railroad connected at Lafayette and reached across the Sabine River to Orange, Texas. The Texas & New Orleans Railroad ran from Orange to Houston, where it connected with the Galveston, Harrisburg, & San Antonio Railroad. From San Antonio, the Central Pacific, traveled to El Paso. It connected at El Paso to the Southern Pacific of New Mexico, then Southern Pacific of Arizona, and finally the Southern Pacific of California, which ran to San Francisco.
Despite the drawbacks, the railroad was a major economic impetus for wherever it went, and in southwest Louisiana, local promoters immediately began an advertising campaign to bring people to the prairies that had now been opened to commerce.
The train had been publicized as one of the finest in the United States at the time, and had been prepared espcially for the California tourist trade.
The locomotive left the track, turned over, and buried itself in 4 or 5 feet of water and mud. No one was killed and the one most seriously hurt was the engineer. He suffered a crushed foot.
Investigators attibute the wreck to a roadway softened by heavy rainfalls in the area.
The engineer was quoted as saying, "We passed through Jennings four minutes late. I eased around the curve just west of Jennings, crossed the Grand Marais bridge, and then I opened her up and pulled the track right up from under us.
All train service had to be detoured for several days while the wreck was cleaned up and the track repaired.
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