One of St. Tammany's oldest roads, known today as The Turnpike, runs northward from Madisonville. It was said to be used by the keelboatmen who came down the Mississippi River on rafts filled with goods, sold them in New Orleans, then crossed Lake Pontchartrain and started the long journey back home .
Turnpike Road was originally known as the Nashville Road. It left Madisonville and headed northward, used mainly by the keelboat-men who hoofed it back home to Tennessee and Kentucky after disposing of their wares in New Orleans. In fact, many have come to believe it is the actual beginning of the famed Natchez Trace.
Text excerpts from the above article:
An Exciting Discovery Is Made Amongst Parish Archives
A discovery of national import has been made by Mrs. Amos Neff, archivist working with old St. Tammany parish records in t h e basement of the courthouse. Mrs. Neff recently ran across a surveyor's map of property immediately north of Madisonville showing it to be bounded on the east. by the "Military Road" and on the west by the "Old Nashville Road".
This is almost positive proof that the famous "Natchez Trace" did not run between Nashville, Tenn. and Natchez, Miss., but between Madisonville and Nashville. The map, dated June, 1820, was made by Gen. David Bannister Morgan of Madisonville, great grandfather of James L. Morgan, former police jury president, and second in command under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.
Trace Now Parkway
Gen. Morgan was a surveyor by profession. He mapped a great many land areas in this section of Louisiana and was familiar with roads and routes. Hence his handwritten description on the map denoting the "old Nashville Road" as a boundary is virtually indisputable.
The Natchez Trace is now a national parkway —a beautiful route that eventually will be completed from Natchez to Nashville.
Now it is up to leaders in the Florida parishes to expand the trace to Madisonville from Natchez, to complete the last link—a link that was not unknown, but unproven until Mrs. Neff's discovery. Actually, a few old-timers had stated the Natchez Trace ran its course through St. Tammany, but these were few, and no proof was available. But the fact that the Natchez Trace did go all the way to Madisonville makes sound, common sense.
The backwoodsmen from Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee who used the Trace mostly used it going home. They ran their skins, oils, resins and tars to New Orleans via flatboat, entering the Mississippi by way of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.
The Mississippi's great current carried them southward, but they couldn't get their boats back home. Luckily there was considerable demand for lumber in New Orleans, and the flatboats were made of sound materials. The bargemen, their pockets full of money, were faced with getting back home by a land route.
The Natchez Trace, you can easily note, was the most direct way. So they took a ferry, steamer or schooner from New Orleans to Madisonville, and from there struck out on foot or on horseback. Further proof that this was the old Natchez Trace is furnished by another record excavated by Mrs. Neff.
Two brothers named Walters, en route back home to Kentucky, became ill. They were taken into the home of John Lanier on the Tangipahoa river, where they died. These are the first recorded deaths on file it St. Tammany parish, because at that time, the Lanier home was in St. Tammany. Now the old site is in Tangipahoa parish, near the Zemurray place. its exact location unknown.
The time of death was in 1811, years before the Battle of New Orleans. Thus St. Tammany has many famed routes traversing its present day area, which is considerably less than it was in 1811. They made all of Washington parish from a chunk of St. Tammany, and a portion of Tangipahoa was formerly in this parish.
At least two other routes are nationally famous. These include the Old Military Road, which General Jackson and his troops traveled in 1813 on the way to defend New Orleans from the British; and US Highway 90, once known as the Old Spanish Trail, a route traversed by the Spaniards between Florida and probably California.
St. Tammany Farmer Newspaper Sept. 4, 1964
End of article
It was a well-travelled route, and by the 1840's the route needed some maintenance and improvement.
On August 13, 1847, a group of men called the Commissioners of Bagget Road published a public notice calling for bids in the building of a road near the Tchefuncte River north of Madisonville. It was to start near Baggage Branch at the St. Tammany - Tangipahoa Parish line and travel southeastward towards Madisonville.
Baggage Branch, just west of the intersection of Bennett Bridge Road and Turnpike Road
Click on the map to make it larger
It was the beginnings of modern improvements to Turnpike Road. For seventy years prior to hardtop road surfacing, this so-called Turnpike Road remained an outstanding example of early road construction in St. Tammany Parish.
Here is the text of that 1847 public bid notice:
"The undersigned commissioners will receive written proposals with good security attached for the completion of a road from a point on the Tchefuncta River known as the Bagget Place to the junction of the road leading from Madisonville to Covington, a distance of thirteen miles, the entire road being now opened and the trees removed, and four miles of which is now completed.
Said road is to be made in the following manner, towit:
All of the savannas or marshy grounds shall be poled and bushed with rails laid compactly together, said rails to be 17 feet in length and covered with six inches of earth; also a ditch four feet wide and one and one half feet in depth is to be opened the entire length of all savannas or marshy places along each side of the road a distance of three feet from the end of the poles.
Also a ditch three feet in width and a depth of one and a half feet to be dug every quarter of a mile and a substantial bridge erected over each ditch sixteen feet wide and a drain cut from the junction of the said cross bridge with the said ditches 100 yards from the road;
Also the low flat pinewoods part of the said road to be either bushed, or poled to the width of sixteen feet and dirt thrown thereon to a depth of six inches. All low places to be causewayed and the natural water courses bridged to the width of sixteen feet; all stumps and logs removed from the roads the entire length and width that the said road is now cut out.
The above described road to be completed on or before the 15 day of October, 1848, for $1,350.00
August 13, 1847- Ezra S. Wager, Jose Colomer, J.S. Johnson: Commissioners
On August 21, 1847 Matthew Dicks accepted the above proposal and executed bond for $450.00 and completed the job."
This information was found in the personal archives of Bertha Neff, former parish archivist.
It was "hard surfaced" with gravel in 1926.
It was paved in 1955.
The Turnpike Road
Today Turnpike Road passes through some of the fastest growing areas in St. Tammany Parish, home to numerous residential subdivisions, a busy interchange on Interstate 12, and large shopping centers as well as Archbishop Hannan High School.
Archbishop Hannan High School along Turnpike Road
A brand new shopping center at Turnpike and Bootlegger Roads (La. Hwys. 1077 and 1085) features a Rouses Supermarket, an Abita Roasting Co. Coffeeworks, Heritage Bank, Urgent Care and several other specialty stores
Turnpike Road in St. Tammany Parish
Images from Google Maps
The newest connection to Turnpike Road is the W. Ochsner Blvd. extension
See also:
