In 1946, World War II was over and so was the need for the many barges, ships and tugboats that had proven so vital to the war effort. St. Tammany Parish shipyards had built many of those.
These were the tugs and barges that had played a key part in helping provide critical petroleum supplies to be shipped across the Atlantic to the war in Europe.
After the war the government needed a place to park all those unneeded vessels, coming in from a wide area across the South. Many of them were anchored in the Tchefuncte River awaiting sales to private concerns.
The sight of so many barges and tugboats lining the river bank was startling to many, so much so that the Times Picayune ran a front page article on the situation, with pictures.
Click on the images to make them larger.
