Interstate 12 Joins St. Tammany Together

Residents of St. Tammany today sometimes don't remember when the parish was divided in two, economically at least. There was the Covington, Mandeville, Madisonville end of the parish on the west, and the Slidell/Pearl River end on the east. Few people made trips from one to the other.

It sometimes got to the point in politics that the parish officials on one end would become unhappy with the parish officials on the other end (police jury and school board comes to mind), and both would entertain the idea that maybe it would be a good idea to split the parish into two. 

That attitude changed somewhat when the interstate was completed from Slidell to Covington. 

Click on the images to make them larger.

The local traffic going laterally from east to west also found that making the interstate highway a part of the route was often quicker. The police jury had not really invested much in building connecting roads east to west, so getting from La. 59 over to U.S. 190 was sometimes an ordeal that required using Sharp Road, Hotsy Totsy Road, Dog Pound Road, or Hwy 36 (or maybe even Soell Drive over to Helenbirg Road.) When the interstate came along, the choice included I-12 and that sped things up quite a bit. 

Here's a Tammany Talk column I wrote in 1973 three years prior to the opening of the interstate. The high-rise bridge over the Tchefuncte River was going to be a big deal, since it re-routed cross country traffic from out of the middle of downtown Covington to a scenic drive over the river and through the woods. 

I remember the day in 1976 when I called the Louisiana State Highway Dept. and asked them when the last section in the Interstate 12 highway through St. Tammany would be completed, so that Covington and Slidell would be finally linked and traffic could get off  the side roads onto the four-lane superhighway. We all knew it was getting close to being finished. 

  I was surprised when the LDOT public relations guy told me he was glad I had called. A grand opening ribbon cutting had been scheduled atop the eastbound Interstate 12 bridge going over U.S. 190 between Covington and Mandeville in just two weeks. Not only that, but since we had called him he was going to let us (the St. Tammany Farmer) have the scoop. 

Two days later the six column headline hit the Farmer newsstands that the interstate would be open in just two weeks, complete with ceremonies, guest speakers and visiting dignitaries. 

The last link in I-12 across Louisiana was opened on June 25, 1976, and both sides of St. Tammany Parish became better acquainted.

Bill Barker Remembered

William Bryant Barker, longtime principal at Lee Road Consolidated School, was interviewed several years ago for the St. Tammany Parish School System television program "Reflections." Speaking to host Marian Arrowsmith, Barker recalled his years growing up in the Folsom area, his time with Pilgrim's Rest School, and life as it was during the Depression around "Barker's Corner."

 

A still frame from the video interview

Click on "Play Triangle" above to view the video. 

Barker during his days as a principal.

He was born November 5, 1930, to the late Horace and Hazel Core Barker. 

During his time with the Army

As a special ed teacher 

Barker died on Friday, May 11, 2012. He had been a life long resident of St. Tammany Parish. According to his obituary, he was known for his huge heart, extraordinary sense of humor and his delicious baked yeast rolls and bread. Many men from the Barker’s Corner Community remember him as their Boy Scout Master, Troop 336. 

William B. Barker was a lifelong educator, and his career in the St. Tammany Parish School Board spanned more than 30 years. He started his profession as a teacher at Fifth Ward and Lee Road Schools. Then he became Principal at Southeast Hospital School in Mandeville. He was Principal at Folsom Elementary/Junior High and Lee Road Consolidated Schools. 

He also served as Supervisor of Special Education for the Parish. After his retirement, he served as a Principal and Administrator of Regina Coeli Head Start System in Covington for nine years. Bill continued his career in education as a Supervisor of Student Teachers for Southeastern Louisiana University. Many took his 55-Alive Driving Safety classes. His weekly column, “Bill’s Corner”, added entertainment to the Shepherd’s Care Bulletin and he taught Sunday school for over 50 years.  

A class portrait from 1972

See also:

Barker's Corner History

100 years ago this week

What was going on 100 years ago this week?

CLICK HERE for a link to the St. Tammany Farmer of September 7, 1918. The link is provided by the Library of Congress and its Chronicling America service.

Click on the sample images below to see larger versions.

Civic Club Carnival

Here's an article from 1952 telling of the preparations for Slidell Mardi Gras Carnival Ball. Click on the image to make it larger. 

A Tour of West St. Tammany

In 1974 I was asked to give a slide presentation to the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association about the attractions of western St. Tammany Parish. The meeting took place in Slidell, and someone else was showcasing the attractions of eastern St. Tammany.

Anyway, here is the presentation I gave, which was in the form of a "road trip" around Mandeville, Madisonville, Covington, Folsom and Abita Springs, something that would serve as a guide to visitors coming over from New Orleans for a day trip. Since the original LTPA presentation was over 46 years ago, I have updated the narrative to include interesting attractions new since that time.

1. We start our tour by coming off the north end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, turning into Lewisburg, and visiting the Seven Sisters Oak. It is the oldest and largest live oak tree in the state and is president of the Live Oak Society.

 

Otis House Museum

2. From there, go up West Causeway Approach and turn left on Hwy. 22. Proceed to Fairview Riverside State Park. With 98 acres of oaks and woodland on the bank of the Tchefuncte River, the park offers picnic areas, a fishing pier, camping facilities and a boat launch. The Otis House museum is also within the park for those wishing a look back into the past.

 

Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum

3. Heading westward and crossing over the Tchefuncte River into Madisonville, we come to one of the oldest communities in the state. Its economy thrived on lumber, brick and charcoal manufacturing, as well as shipbuilding for many years. Its cemetery has graves of many historic figures. The town hosts the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum and the annual Wooden Boat Festival. If there on a weekend, the Madisonville Museum is open Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

 
4. Traveling northward on La 21, we go into Covington, the parish seat. The old downtown section has been a center of commerce for centuries, as farmers brought their agricultural products to the Columbia St. schooner landing for shipment to New Orleans. Numerous arts and crafts shops and specialty retail shops of all kinds, Covington offers a variety of restaurant experiences. There's a trailhead museum as well as the H.J. Smith's Sons Old General Merchandise Museum.

5. From Covington we cross the Bogue Falaya River and head up Military Road (La. 21) where in a few miles we turn north onto Old Military Road (La. 1082). A short ways up we pass numerous horse farms and the famous Dorignac Farms ranch. Once we reach Pontchartrain Vineyards, we can enjoy a quick stop there for refreshments, then head south again.  

6. When we reach La. 21, we turn left and travel a short distance, and then turn south again on La. Hwy. 59. A few miles later, we are turning left into Abita Springs, home of the famous Abita Pavilion, Trailhead museum, UCM museum and the annual Water Festival. Formerly a Choctaw Indian village, Abita was once a world-famous health resort with several large hotels.

7. From Abita Springs, we travel south on La. 59 and, upon reaching U.S. 190 in Mandeville, we turn left and head for Fontainebleau State Park. This beautiful 2700 acre park was originally a sugar plantation, and the ruins of the old sugar mill built in 1829 are still visible. Fontainebleau State Park also offers a great sand beach on Lake Pontchartrain, campsites, and picnic pavilions.

8. Upon leaving Fontainebleau State Park and heading west, we pass Pelican Park, one of the largest recreational areas in the state. 

The Nature Center scenic video

Also on the right, on the east bank of Bayou Castine, is the Northlake Nature Center where an elevated boardwalk takes one on a tour of native plants and animal habitats.

 

The Lang House Museum

 
9. As we near Mandeville again, turn left on Jackson Avenue and proceed southward to the Mandeville harbor, across from Pontchartrain Yacht Club. A drive along scenic Lakeshore Drive will remind one of the summer homes and several tourist hotels lining the lakefront years ago. Mandeville's trailhead museum and the Lang House Museum are additional attractions, along with several fine restaurants. 

10.  Turning west on Monroe Street will deliver us back to North Causeway Approach, where we began.Then its southward across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

 

Playmakers Awards

 Over the past 50 or so years Playmakers Inc. has produced a large number of plays, and given out a large number of trophies at its annual Alvin Awards programs.

The Alvin Awards Ceremony given by Playmakers Inc. in 1977 drew an audience of 109 people for a fun and award-winning presentation of the past year's outstanding productions. Here is a photograph of the winners, followed by the handwritten notes taken during the program.

Among the presenters were Meda Koepp, Claire Canik, Meredith Berry, Ducky Adams, Elizabeth Malone, and Al Poncet. Danny Hanemann won Best Actor and Karen Giglioni won Best Actress. Arthur Middleton won Best Set, Christopher Hanian won Best Supporting Actor, Taffy Maginnis won Best Supporting Actress, and John Stipcewich won Best Director.

Accompanying the presentation of awards came the traditional remembrances from the past year of lines forgotten, backstage mishaps, and wardrobe malfunctions. But the show must go on (and went on) in spite of actors falling asleep, very large casts, non-working props, unreliable special effects, and make-up issues.

These memories often called up further remembrances of what the really early days at the Sans Souci theater were like: the cold drafty barn, no rest rooms, a tent for the make-up application, goats, cats, cat mishaps, turtles laying eggs, and the lights going out.

On the Playmakers Board at that time, 1977, were Katie Friedricks, Marcella Illing, Mike Cousin, Jacques Gibert, Arthur Middleton, John Stipcewich, Troy Jackson, Norma Core, Bill Mysing, and A.J. Kreller. Lifetime memberships had been acquired by longtime Playmakers supporters Elizabeth Malone, Joyce and Les Landon, Julia Stone, Steve and Betty Ellis, Philip Burns and Peggy McGinnis.  

Here's a picture of the top award winners at an Alvin Awards ceremony in the mid-1970's. 

 

See also:

History of Playmakers

 Playmakers Inc. Origins

Playmakers Backstage

The Playmakers Barn

The 1972 Alvin Awards 

Tremendous Growth in St. Tammany - 1977

On January 30, 1977, the Times Picayune published an article by longtime Florida Parishes correspondent John Fahey entitled "St. Tammany Continues Its Tremendous Growth."

It talked about growth rates, property assessments, and the need for new and improved infrastructure. 

Let's take a look at that article published 41 years ago. Click on the image to make it larger. 

Times Picayune reporters John Fahey (left) and Susan Finch (center) talking to Superintendent of Schools Cyprian J. Schoen in the 1970's.

See also:

Phone Lines Told The Growth Story

History of St. Tammany Parish By Polly Morris

On October 8, 1976, the St. Tammany News Banner published an article by Polly Morris telling of her research into the history of St. Tammany Parish. Here is that article. 

St. Tammany Parish History by Polly Morris, 
St. Tammany News Banner, Oct. 8, 1976

When did the first white men get foot on St. Tammany soil? And who were they?

One historian is quite definite about Discovery Day. He states that it was sometime during the last week in March when a group of Frenchmen arrived at an indefinite location between Polecat Curve and Rabbit island, in the Southeast corner Of SI. Tammany. Andre, ship's carpenter with Bienville, disagrees.

According to his journal it was August 28 "when we quit the sea on our left. . . and reached an island that we named Isle-aux-Pois," now identified with east Pearl River Island.

Other writers, too, disagree, but all give the Frenchmen credit because they left definite records about Lake Pontchartrain, Pearl River, Castine Bayou, Bayou LaCombe. and the Tchcfuncte River. However, this does not mean that someone else saw it first, and may even have landed, though briefly.

Legends of Long Ago

There is a legend about Prince Madoc ap (son of) Owain Gwynedd. His father ruled the largest principality in Wales. When Owain died in 1170, his principality of Gwynedd was, divided between his sons, but David ap Owain Gwynedd seized power. Legend has it that Prince Madoc left his homeland and sailed West. He might have been looking for the Utopia Isle of Avalon, the Celtic Para dite or he could have been looking for the elusive Lost Continent of Atlantis.

He landed on the Gulf Coast near Mobile Bay, and either explored or settled or sailed away in the search for the Isle of the Blessed. At any rate there is no proof of his voyage, but a legend persisted about blonde-haired blue-eyed Indians that spoke the Welsh language.

There Is another story that Is not all legend at all. Two hundred years before the Sun King of France sent his explorers to the land called Louisiana, there were Spanish Ships in the Gulf of Mexico mapping the coastline for men who would come later, seeking silver and gold.

The Great Sea Birds

It would almost have to be a fact, that one morning when the fog began to lift in the St. Tammany swamplands, a band of Indians would be paddling around the mouth of the Pearl River on a hunt.  They would freeze like statues to see a huge ghostly shape emerging from the mists. They would hide in the reeds, trembling with fear until it passed silently on its way.

That night they would bravely tell the villagers about a great sea bird with three tattered triangular wings that swept across the sea without a sound, and disappeared on the hazy horizon. Despite the warmth of a flickering fire, they would shiver with apprehension. Perhaps it was an evil omen, and they should prepare to leave this lush land.

They would not know that there were white men on the caravel who were not interested in their poor little villages. That they were making maps for those who would come later, greedy for gold and silver.

There is a possibility that the pilot of the Spanish ship was an Italian named Amerigo Vespucci, for he claimed to have made 4 trips to the New World. He said that one of these trips took place in 1499, and historians have doubted his sincerity.

But it is known that he made maps of his journeys, and that a geographer who used his maps to make other maps for navigators. This cartographer was named Martin Waldseemuller, and he made a map called the Tabula Terra Nova before 1508 that Is hard to explain.

The Tabula Terra Nova shows the coastlines of two continents designated as the two Americas by the map-maker. On the north shore is a great three tongued river that empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It is undeniably the Mississippi River, but the map-maker traced it from an original of before 1502. It poses some puzzling questions. What white man knew about the Father of Waters at that time? Could it have been Vespucci, who was esteemed enough by a famous map-maker to have two continents named for him?

The Strait of Anion

Twenty years passed, and those who had seen the great sea bird were under a cloud of disbelief as black as that which followed Vespucci. Their sons now hunted for the villagers, and they too waited for the fog to lift. They saw the great sea birds come out of the mist, and hurried home to vindicate their fathers. Maybe the sea birds were not evil after all. Maybe they were like the floating houses that were stacked one upon another that had been seen by the Florida Indians. They were said to be peopled by bearded white men who gave beads and blankets, but who had a terrible temper at times.

Historians know that the great sea birds were the expedition of Alonso Alvarez de Penida, a Spaniard who mapped the coast from the Florida Keys to Vera Cruz. No doubt his ship passed St. Tammany, and land-hungry men looked longingly at firm earth, but Pineda passed on, for he was searching for the Strait of Anian, a legendary passage to the Pacific Ocean. He too noted a great river less than half a hundred miles from St. Tammany, which he called Espirito Santo, or River of the Holy Ghost.

Fly by Night

No doubt the Indians were curious about the good-bad white men in big boats, and they might even have heard about an ill-fated voyage that ended in the Tampa area. It had been six months since the Spaniards under Panfilo de Narvaez had lost their boats before they were ready to travel again. It had been a horror-filled time of starvation and storms and savages who were truly savage.

While attempting to stay alive and build make-shift boats, they had lived on roots and berries and fish. Finally they had killed their horses for food, and when that meat was gone, boiled their belts and boots for leather soup.

At last they completed their crude fleet of five boats, stocked them as best they could, and pushed away from the shore well after dark. They kept as close to the shore as possible, for the boats were scarcely seaworthy.

It seems impossible that the gaunt survivors did not pass St. Tammany and not look at the Isle of Peas with haunted eyes. Since the Indian villages were inland on more solid ground, it also seems possible that the living skeletons of men did not i spend a tortured night or two where Frenchmen would in 171 years forget a sack of peas.

But their stay would have been brief, for they were trying to get to Tampico and safety. It would take them eight years to arrive, and only four out of an original 600 would live through the hardships of a tropical storm, slavery, and the terrible trek West. It is no wonder that the brave Cabeza de Vaca could not describe each stop-over in detail when he wrote about the ordeal. He was only interested in survival.

The Real One?

Although there is no proof of anyone stepping on St. Tammany soil from 1499 on to 1699. it seems incredible that they did not. It was necessary to take on fresh water regularly if available. Certainly the Pearl River would have been an ideal source, as it empties into the sound. Entering a partially enclosed bay for river water was risky business, for war canoes could surround a ship..or capture a work boat if the bay was too shallow for large ships. Ebb tide or sand bars or shallow water was also to be avoided.

Penicaut mentions game and fresh water in abundance at Isle of Peas. And certainly an expedition charged with making charts would keep close to the coastline. Indeed, it seems incredible for a map-maker to ignore the Rigolets. Certainly Pineda would have wondered if this wide passage did not lead to the Strait of Anian.

Even if the other white men did not come ashore, there is one other candidate who would have to have been in St. Tammany at one time.

In 1550 there was another star-crossed voyage. About 4,000 people left Spain for Mexico. There was a severe storm, and only 300 survived, coming ashore some where between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi River. It might have been better if they had perished in the storm, for they were brutally attacked by Indians who were either Mobillian or Acollapisa. 

Among the unfortunates was a Dominican lay-brother, Marcos de Mena. His companions, believing the Indians to be cannibals,   buried   the lay-brother in the sand, but leaving him an air hole to breathe through. His chances were slim indeed, for he had been hit seven limes with arrows, but if he died, the Indians could not defile the body of a holy man.

A miracle happened, and Brother Marcos was eventually able to dig out of his temporary-grave. He looked at the bloody mess around hun, and began praying. All of his companions had been brutally murdered and their clothing removed. He kept on praying. . and walking. When he finally limped in to Tampico his feet were bleeding. He told his story and from the description he gave of the Indians, they would have been near or in the Tammany area. Surely this man must have set foot on St. Tammany en route to Mexico.

Brother Marcos de Mena left no documented records, for he was a man on the move.
The French left records about everything, but there could have been things that were better omitted. Bienville told of an English ship, and English blankets found on Indians, and of trade between the Choctaws of Mississippi and the English peddlers. This was shortly after he arrived in 1699.

It could be that white men were not as much of a novelty as the St. Tammany Indians pretended. Perhaps they failed to mention that the enemies of the French gave them nice gifts too. . . and had better merchandise. It would have been to their advantage to have kept the right hand away from the left... and accepted gifts from each.


Click on the image to make it larger and more readable. 

See also:

Where did St. Tammany get its name?

Madisonvillle Boat Festival Aerial Video

Here is a video combining several still aerial photographs of a Madsionville Wooden Boat Festival from a few years back. Click on the play triangle in the middle of the picture to run the video, then click on the "full screen" icon in the lower right corner to enlarge the view. 

Restaurant On The Water

The Abita Roasting restaurant and coffee shop on the riverfront in Madisonville is one of my favorite places, not only for the food and drink (and live music from time to time) but for the location, landscaping and backyard ambiance. They have a shallow pond, a three-tiered fountain, a big oak tree, and several pieces of patio furniture to round out the relaxing, rejuvenating environment. 

They use the backyard for weddings and receptions and stuff like that, but I found it a great place just to take pictures, especially with all the "water features" surrounded by elephant ears and other lush vegetation.

 

Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

Of course, the biggest "water feature" of all is the Tchefuncte River right across the street.