Ox Teams Pulling Timber Wagons

This kind of photograph shows up a lot in St. Tammany history, oxen teams pulling something heavy with a group of men standing around. We don't see them much nowadays, but more than 100 years ago oxen were an important part of daily commerce and industry,  it would seem. Click on the images below to make them larger. 

 

From a 1908 Postcard: Logging in the Pine Forest Near Covington

Ox cart near Madisonville

Even the interiors of Covington downtown city blocks are named in honor of the beasts, "ox lots." Those are 120 foot by 120 foot areas straddling the center of the alleys bisecting each block. Farmers visiting town with their produce would tie up their oxen in the ox lots overnight, before heading home the next day, according to some histories. 

 

This old postcard shows an oxen team in downtown Hammond