Courthouse On The Move

 In 1955 the old Pearl River Courthouse was moved to a Lions Club community playground to use for storing sports equipment. 

Click on the above image to make it larger. 

Train Trip From Florenville to Abita Springs - 1886

In 1886 a reporter for The New Orleans Picayune newspaper took a train ride from New Orleans to Slidell, then on to Pearl River Junction, where he switched trains and headed towards Florenville, a town that used to straddle Hwy. 36 just west of Hickory. 

From there he headed for Abita Springs, tracing the route of the present day La. Hwy. 36. He recorded his thoughts, his observations, and his astonishment at the progress of the railroad and logging industry. 

Click on the image to make it larger. 

Above, an old 1895 railroad map showing the route taken by the reporter in the article below. The green line traces the railroad trip, from New Orleans through Slidell to Pearl River Junction (about a mile from the town of Pearl River), then over to Florenville, and westward through Generelly and Mandeville Junction and on to Abita Springs. 

In the article, the track had not yet been completed all the way to Abita Springs and Covington. This track follows the path of current day La. Hwy. 36 and is different than the one that goes through Lacombe and Mandeville then north to Abita Springs (the current Tammany Trace).

"Mandeville Junction" was located on the current day La. Hwy. 36 and provided a track that headed southwest towards Mandeville (along the current day path of  La. Hwy. 1088). 

Here is the text of his article:

 NEW ORLEANS TO ABITA

 The Picayune August 11 ,  1886

A Trip Through the Piney Woods Over the
Poitevent & Favre East Louisiana Railroad.

An Enterprise of Great Interest to This City.
Scenes in a Splendid Timber Country
The Home of the Southern Yellow Pine

     On Saturday a representative of  the Picayune availed himself of an opportunity to take a trip up the Northeastern Railroad to Pearl River, which is becoming a very popu­lar resort for excursionists from this city. The fact that this run of thirty-rive miles is one of the pleasantest to be found in the neighborhood of New Orleans, seems to be fully realized by the public, judging from the large and increasing number of people who go out on the excursion trains every Sunday and spend some hours in the lovely woods of St. Tammany.

Although this railroad has been in opera­tion for several years, there are many residents of the city to whom the route is un­familiar. From the depot in the Third Dis­trict, the track runs directly to Lake Pontchartrain along the embankment of the lower drainage canal, which is bordered by a luxuriant growth as dense as a tropical jungle. The spectator naturally wonders whether some day this rank vegetation will be cleared away, and the fertile land drained and prepared tor human habitation and agricultural purposes. 

As we pass through this unreclaimed wilderness a passenger experienced in such work, remarked that it was not only practicable, but could be accomplished at an expense far below the popular estimate. In a few minutes we come within sight of the broad expanse of the lake whose waters, ruffled by the breeze, sparkle in the bright light of the morning sun. 

Train Trestle

The train has now rolled out on the trestlework along the shore. Over twenty-one miles In length, it is proba­bly the most expensive continuous structure  of the kind to this country, For some thirteen miles we ran along a level, smooth track with the lake on the left and on the right hand the boundless marsh.  Then, at Pointe-aux-Herbes, the train leaves the land and glides across the great bridge nearly five miles in length.

Far out on the lake flotillas of schooners, with all sails set and filled by the stiff breeze, are holding their course tor the Rigolets Pass which is barely visible as a gap in tne faint line of the eastern horizon. 

First View Of St. Tammany

A thin border of glittering white sand and shells margins the green rim of the northern shore, whence stretches away to the dark woods a broad prairie overgrown with sedge and tall grasses. Here and there are pools of water that glow in the sun like mirrors of burnished metal, where herds of fat red cattle are standing up to their knees among the pond lilies. Snow white herons, flocks of chattering rice birds, and occasionally a lazy rail, startled by the whistle of the locomo­tive, wing their flight leisurely over the marsh.

A few minutes later and the train enters the shadowy pine barrens, and the whistle signals the first station of importance on the road, Slidell, twenty-eight miles distant from New Orleans. Seven miles further on, and we reach Pearl River Station, thirty-live miles from the city. The run has occupied a little less than an hour and a quarter. Here the reporter leaves the train. On the way up he has met Capt. John Poitevent, of  the firm of Poitevent & Favre, and accepted an invitation to make a trip over the P & F, East Louisiana Railroad.

 It is at this point that a branch of the East Louisiana Railroad connects with the Northeastern track. Originally a narrow gauge line, it was changed several months ago to standard gauge to conform with the Northeastern Road.

Click on the image above to make it larger. 

Pearl River Station

While awaiting the departure of the Florenville train, the reporter had an op­portunity to look about him and inspect the improvements which are being made. This station being the junction of the two roads and a resort for excursionists, it was deter­mined to erect a large and commodious depot or station-house, which is now in course of construction.

 Its dimensions will be  40 by 140  feet. The work is being done jointly by the railroads interested. A short distance from the track is a spacious dancing pavilion, erected by Mr. Lagroue for the accommodation of picnic parties. The words surrounding the station are thick and present a numerous variety of trees. There were standing on a side track half a dozen flat cars loaded with steel rails of the best quality, which are to be laid on the East Louisiana Railroad.

The reporter had scarcely completed his observations when the peculiar sound of whistle of the kind used on the Lake Shore Railroad announced that the train was ready to move. It consisted of a long line of eight-wheeled trucks manufactured by the Wheeling Foundry Company of Detroit, and specially adapted to the transportation of logs. 

The Logging Train

They were drawn by a powerful locomotive, the  "Pearl River," made by H. K. Porter & Co., of Pittsburg. Capt. Sam R. Poitevent, the energetic superintendent of the East Louisiana Railroad, was in charge, with Mr. Farrell, an experienced engineer, in the cab. The train had just dropped a load of trees into the river at the terminus of the main line, and had run up on the branch to the station. The route of the rail­road is almost due east and west.

A 1894 Train Schedule

For a mile or two it leads through a thick hummock of oak, gum, ash, poplar, cypress and other trees common to the river bot­toms. A large spring of excellent drinking water is passed. Springs and wells abound throughout the entire region.

Trees, Stumps and Logs

 Very soon we were rolling over the line track at a rate of twenty miles an hour through the pine forest. The array of stumps which line the road indicated that the ax and  saw had been busy in this  section. Many large trees have disappeared from the vicinity of the route, and further off the density of the forest seems scarcely to have been broken. Laborers were observed along the, roadbed, placing telegraph poles in position. Four­teen miles of wire is aiready on the ground.

Six miles from the river, the train stops at Florenville, a village of from 250 to 300 inhabitants which has sprung up in the midst of the pine woods. It is named after a Frenchman, a large buyer of lumber, who paid a visit to the place several years ago. The principal buildings are a two-story hotel and a store belonging to Poitevent & Favre and the residences of Capt. Sam Poitevent and Mr. Josey Fevre. An artesian well is one of the improvements in course of completion.

Alter a short stay at Florenville the train goes out seven miles to the end of the road for a load of logs. En route we pass five immense barns, or stables, where the stock belonging to the railroad company is housed and  fed. The necessity for such extensive accommodations for cattle is shown by the fact that the company has in service about fifty teams, which average five yoke of oxen per team, beside a large number of mules. 

Through spaces in the woods, on each side of the road, could be seen a score of these teams hauling logs to the "ramps " or plat­forms at intervals along the track. From the ramps the logs are easily rolled off skids on to the trucks as they move up in suc­cession.

Two miles from Florenville a spur track runs southwest for three miles and pene­trates a magnificent timber forest, where gigantic pines and fine cypress trees are numerous. Continuing on the main line the road traverses a cypress belt. It is there that the cypress ties are being cut that Poitevent & Favre are shipping by the thou­sand  through  J. J. Fallon. of New Orleans to a Central American railroad company.

As the train approached the present ex­tremity or the road the timber appeared denser, and finally a virgin forest was reached, which is still untouched by the ax. An almost unbroken silence reigns in these woods. Except when the ax men and saw­yers are at work, the only sound to be heard is tne soughing of the wind in the pine tops.

This is the Choctaw land. The graves of their people are scattered through the woods, and off to the south is the settlement where linger the last of the race.  Nine miles to the southwest is Mandeville; seven miles due west are the Abita Springs, and two miles beyond and almost in the same straight line is Covington on the Tchefuncta. 

Covington

The latter town is the objective point of the East Louisiana Railroad, towards which it will be pushed rapidly as soon as the busy summer months are passed. There are no obstacles in the way, the ground is level and firm, and ties are plentiful. By the time the writer had made an excursion to "Generelly Sta­tion," half a mile from the end of the road, the train had been loaded with its burden of logs which were rolled upon the trucks from the ramps. There were four or five logs to a truck. 

Some idea of their size may be formed from the state­ment that one tree was estimated to weigh 10,000 pounds, being a spar 86 feet long and 18 inches at the top. It Is no unusual thing to haul 225 trees per day on the railroad. Last month the timber transported aggregated 1,500,000, and with good weather, the amount for August will foot up 2,000,000 feet. 

Train Trucks Filled With Logs

The "Pearl River," drawing the immense train of logs steamed off to the eastward at the rate of from 15 to 20 miles an hour, This speed is rendered practicable by the excellent con­dition of the roadbed. which requires very little ballasting: the ties are placed close together and are well laid. The road leads directly to the bank of Pearl River, and the trucks line up with a chute or sloping frame­work of legs very strongly constructed.

The process of unloading was very interesting. The logs once started from the trucks rolled down the inclined and dived into the river, raising a great commotion in the water and sending the spray high up into the air. The stream at that point is from twenty to thirty feed deep, and runs with a four mile current at high-water stage.

The logs, each bearing the owner's mark, float down the river for thirty five miles, and are arrested in their voyage at Pearlington, where the Poitevent & Favre Mill is situated. There they are converted into lumber of various kinds, at the rate of about 120,000 feet per day, and go out in this new form on the vessels of the company and foreign ships to the Gulf ports, Europe and other parts of the world.

Nearly 300 men are employed on the East Louisiana Railroad. The total length of track, including branches and switches, is about seventeen miles. The road is in excellent condition, fully equipped and in first class running order. The Poitevent & Favre tract of land, comprising some 75,000 acres, is bisected by the railroad, the sections on each side having an average width of about six miles.

By next spring the line will have been finished to Abita Springs and Covington.

President Galt, of the Queen and Crescent Railroad, (The Northeastern) is anxious to have the road completed to Abita Springs, which, he thinks, will attract many visitors from the North and West. He will make special rates over his road from Cincinatti and other Western cities. The trip from New Orleans to Abita by the Northeastern Railroad and East Louisiana Railroad will occupy less than two hours' time. It will be an easy matter for the residents of this city to visit daily the healthful pine woods of St. Tammany and profit by the medicinal and sanitary properties of the springs. 

Railway connection between Abita and New Orleans, which has so often been discussed as a possibility of the future, is soon to be a fact, a reality. 

End of article

Thanks to Janice O'Berry for additional information in this article.

The East Louisiana Railroad, built by Poitevent and Favre, arrived on June 26, 1887, at Abita Springs. The train was extended to Covington the following year, 1888. Overnight excursions from Covington to Abita became popular with the extension of the railroad to Covington.

See Also:

Pearl River Train Station

Dummy Line Train Tracks

Excursions

Oak Downs Quarter Horse Track

 The Oak Downs quarter horse race track in Pearl River was a popular destination back 30 to 50 years ago. 

According to local residents commenting on Facebook, the Pearl River quarter horse race track was located east of Oak Downs Drive. It was owned by Eddie Holdsworth, they said, and several remembered going out there when they were kids. 

"My dad use to race horses out there before I was born. He took me a lot when I was a kid to watch the races," one person said. Lee Williams remembered having quick snippets of video of his dad and grandfather at a race there. 

"Up until about 20 years ago and many years after they had stopped using it as an actual racing track, but they used the barn/stalls in the far back, right corner of the property (just beyond where the grand stands used to be). Those who still owned horses locally but would race them in other areas (New Orleans, Lafayette, etc) would rent the stalls out for their horses. The horse owners would have their trainers come there and they would still use the track to train and time the horses. I went there ALOT with my dad growing up. I think that they were still using it in that capacity by the time that I graduated high school in 1994."

Another commenter said that Claude Polk and brother Jake raced a quarter horse named Bar Queens there. 

"It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon," said Allen Decker. " They held one of the Pearl River Catfish Festivals there."

Twyla Beals said that she loved going there. "My Grandfather (Chuck Craddock) and his brother Rick had a horse (Parkers Warrior) this was in the early 70's. I was little but still remember it all!"

The Pearl River Ludwig Koenig Family

 Here is a photograph, taken in 1908 , of the Ludwig Koenig Family, who ran a sawmill in Pearl River. 

Click on the above picture to make it larger. 

The 1986 Pearl River High Football Team

 This picture, taken in 2011, shows the 1986 football team from Pearl River High, back on the field for a visit in uniform. 

 

 

Click on the image to make it larger. 

Masonic Lodge in Pearl River

The Masonic Lodge in Pearl River, LA, was chartered on February 8, 1960. It was called the Pearl Lodge No. 456, Free & Accepted Masons (F&AM)

 

Here are both sides of a souvenir coin issued for donations for that event.

 

A Google Street View Photo of the Masonic Lodge

Pearl River High - 1975 Aerial

Here is an aerial photograph of Pearl River taken in 1975, with the view looking west. Pearl River High School is seen in the lower center of the picture. Click on the image to make it larger. 

Here's a close up of Pearl River High School the way it looked in 1975

And here is the same view of Pearl River High in 2018, courtesy of Google Maps

See also:

Aerial photographs of Pearl River area in 1975

Pearl River High Accredited In 1974

In November of 1974, the faculty, administration and students of Pearl River High School were granted membership with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. They had undergone a three-day intense evaluation process for which they had been getting ready for months. Here's the newspaper article about the accomplishment. Click on the image for a larger view. 

See also:

Pictures of Pearl River High Over the Years

Pictorial Map of Pearl River

Pearl River Goes To Washington

Pearl River, LA: Gateway to the Miss. Gulf Coast

After years of steamboats carrying passengers (and automobiles) across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans to Mandeville, the dream of building a road around the eastern end of the lake began to materialize. 

In 1918, serious efforts were initiated to build a road from Chef Menteur and New Orleans, towards the southeastern portion of St. Tammany Parish. An editorial in the St. Tammany Farmer newspaper of May 11, 1918, stated the following:

The Chef Menteur Road

When St. Tammany does it part, the road from Chef Menteur to Slidell will unite this parish to the New Orleans to the Gulf Coast road, which will give us excellent connections with other points, and the building or the road to Hammond will still further give us good roads connection.

Under the provision of the legislature automobile licenses will be turned into tho Stale road fund and will assist greatly in the construction of roads to which this parish will have access. Survey of the road from the Rigolets to Slidell and from Slidell lo East Pearl River at a point in Mississippi between Napoleon and Logtown is already completed and an approximate cost furnished. 

 The distance from the Rigolets to Slidell is six and a quarter miles. From Slidell to the Mississippi line is ten and a quarter miles. The work will be in charge of the State Highway De­partment and will be built with the funds provided by automobile licenses and lines and penalties collected in the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, Tangipahoa and St. Tammany. 

The cost of the road from the Rigolets to Slidell, via the Mayfleld route, will be approximately seventy thousand dollars, and the road from Slidell to the Mississippi lino, including a draw bridge across West Pearl River and half the cost of a drawbridge across East Pearl River will be approximately $250,000.

St. Tammany parish will be a great beneficiary of this road, and its building will be welcomed and as fated as a popular movement.

St. Tammany Farmer Editorial May 11, 1918

 

 

 

 

 

Efforts To Aid Building the Chef Menteur Hwy Heightened in 1919

 

 
  After that segment was completed, motorists from New Orleans could reach St. Tammany but had to put their cars on ferry boats (represented by dotted lines on the map below) to cross the Chef Menteur Pass and the Rigolets. There was also a ferry (dotted line) that went from the Chef Menteur Pass through Lake Borgne and up the Pearl River to Pearlington. 

The project made additional progress when, in 1924, a portion of the road was built heading for the Gulf Coast from the town of Pearl River in St. Tammany Parish northeastward across the Honey Island swamp to the small Mississippi town of Santa Rosa. That was before there was U.S. Hwy. 90 between Pearlington, Miss., and the Rigolets Pass. Click on the map below to see a larger version.

 

Click on the images to make them appear larger.

That made the Town of Pearl River the 

Louisiana Gateway to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

 

Bridge over the Pearl River leading into Mississippi, Year 1926. It opened for traffic in November of 1926.

 Image from the Bay St. Louis Facebook page. 

Thus, in the late 1920's, the only automobile route from Bay St. Louis, MS, to New Orleans was up to Santa Rosa, MS, then over the swamp to Pearl River, LA, then down through Slidell to the ferry at the Rigolets. 

To get to New Orleans from there, cars had to board the ferry at the Rigolets Pass. A picture of that ferry is below.

 

A Chamber of Commerce Map from 1930

At Bay St. Louis, Miss., a bridge had not yet been built either, so another ferry carried people and cars across the Bay.

The new road built in 1924 between Pearl River, LA., and Santa Rosa, Miss., cut across the Pearl River Swamp at a point where some of the major creeks and streams were narrow enough to cross without building a major bridge. See below.

 

The road across the swamp from Pearl River, LA., to Santa Rosa, MS

The topo map above shows the road built in 1924 heading northeastward out of Pearl River across the Pearl River swamp. In the 1970's Interstate 59 was completed between Pearl River and Picayune, Miss., so U.S. Hwy 11 was re-routed to follow the Interstate 59 corridor. The bridges on the short cut to Santa Rosa were removed and now the old 1924 road is used to access the interior of the wildlife management area.

Between 1924 and 1934, the highway coming in from Mississippi and making the loop up to Santa Rosa and across to the town of Pearl River was called The Old Spanish Trail, a national highway from Florida to California. The part of the highway route that ran through Slidell is still called the Old Spanish Trail.

 

 

Famed Spanish Trail Crosses St. Tammany Parish
St. Tammany Farmer Newspaper - Sept. 4, 1926

Original Route Ran Along North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain

The original Old Spanish Trail traverses the southern border of St. Tammany Parish. As this famous old trail is now modernly laid out, it diverges from Slidell southeasterly and crosses the Rigolets and Chef Menteur and thence into New Orleans, where it crosses the Mississippi River and goes on westward through Houma and Morgan City.

This route, however, is not the original route of the early pioneers through this section. Indeed, at the time the old trail was made it would have been impossible to have gone through the swamps just south of Slidell and below Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans.

Instead, the route of the original trail lay just along the first high ground north of Lake Pontchartrain. It entered St. Tammany, as near as can be ascertained, at Pearl River at a point where Indian Village now stands.

It ran westward from there crossing Bayou Lacombe at a point near where Lacombe is now located, thence to Mandeville, through the Indian village of Chinchuba and across to Madisonville, thence west to Springfield, through the territory where Ponchatoula is now located, and from Springfield, southwesterly to Donaldsonville, where it crossed the Mississippi River.

Meandering along Bayou Lafourche to a point about Thibodeaux, it struck westerly thru the swamps and crossed the Atchafalaya at Morgan City.

In the early days, travelers over land from the east who desired to get to New Orleans took this trail to Mandeville or Madisonville and then went by sail boat across Lake Pontchartrain or continued to the Mississippi River and took passage by flat boat down the Mississippi. The route across Lake Pontchartrain was the most favored.

If the present day tourist desires to go over the original Spanish Trail in this section as nearly as possible, he should enter the present trail over the Pearl River and continue same to Slidell, thence take the present modern highway through Bonfouca, Hygeia, Lacombe, Mandeville, Chinchuba, thence the hard surfaced road directly to Madisonville, and then straight to Pontchatoula, Springfield, and then over the road to Hope Villa, and then along the Jefferson Highway to Darrow and cross the Mississippi River at that point to Donaldsonville. 

 

End of 1926 article

 

A 1927 Highway Dept. Map

 

  In 1928, a bridge was built over the Rigolets, eliminating the need for the ferry. It was opened to traffic on June 9, 1930.

 

A postcard featuring the bridge over The Rigolets, southeast of Slidell. Fort Pike is in the lower part of the postcard, so the view is looking north. Notice that on the opposite shore there wasn't any road at this time heading off to the right towards Pearlington, MS.

On the southern end of the Rigolets Bridge was the historic landmark Fort Pike.

In 1933, a new shorter route was created when bridges were built over the East Pearl River, the Middle Pearl and the West Pearl River, and a highway (the future U.S. 90) was completed between Pearlington and the Rigolets. When that was finished, the connecting road between the Town of Pearl River and Santa Rosa was no longer the Gateway to Louisiana and thus some 22 miles were knocked off the journey to New Orleans.

Three years later, a  new roadway connecting Slidell to the new highway was proposed.

The topographic quad in 1936

Shortly thereafter, the Old Spanish Trail route was re-aligned over to Hwy. 90 at Pearlington. These re-alignments often happened when a shorter, more convenient section of roadway became available. Below are current day photos of the bridges built over the West Pearl, Middle Pearl and East Pearl Rivers, which gave New Orleans traffic more direct access from Mississippi. 

The East Pearl River Bridge at Pearlington, MS 

The Middle Pearl River Bridge 

The West Pearl River Bridge 

It was recently reported that the State of Louisiana may be doing some major bridge improvements to the three bridges above in the next several years. 

When that eight and a half mile stretch of Hwy. 90 was opened between Pearlington and the Rigolets, it became the quickest and most direct route to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, meaning that a lot of people passed that way. So a restroom stop and a tourist attraction was bound to pop up.

Everyone remembers the White Kitchen restaurant and Reptile Jungle tourist attraction on that segment of highway.

 

 

 

Fort Pike on the Rigolets 1956

 

Building the interstate across the swamp was quite an adventure

The old Rigolets bridge was replaced in 2008 with a long sweeping high-elevation bridge.  CLICK HERE for more information.  

Photo: Massman Construction

Below is a picture of the new bridge.

The Rigolets Bridge Today

A video explaining the sequence is available by CLICKING ON THIS LINK.

The roadway between Logtown and Gainesville was later absorbed into the Stennis Space Center buffer zone and residents in the area were moved to another location.  

 

And the Town of Pearl River became known as the Home of the Honey Island Swamp

 

See also:

Old Spanish Trail Renaissance Conference

The Old Spanish Trail