PORT OF LAKE CHARLES A VISION FOR THE FUTURE by Shirley Haupt

The history of Southwest Louisiana is steeped in folklore and romanticism. Legends of Jean Lafitte and his marauding band of pirates using Louisiana’s bayou country to elude pursuers abound. According to folklore, he and his men would duck into narrow inlets and bayous that were often inaccessible to larger craft. Legend has it that Jean Lafitte sailed into Contraband Bayou, stashed his ill-gotten gains and ventured out again in search of unsuspecting prey.

The recorded history of Southwest Louisiana is as remarkable as the legends. Its history is the tale of men and women leaving their native homes to settle an untamed wilderness. In the mid-1800s, Southwest Louisiana was a land without public roads. None of the modern conveniences we take for granted existed.

The history of Southwest Louisiana is a story of courage and dedication; of vision and foresight; of drive and ambition. It is the story of people working together to build a community. It is the story of men and women fighting the elements and winning most of the time.

The South was in turmoil following the War Between the States. The war-torn South was rebuilding and changing. Impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson were begun and dropped. Sawmills and lumber mills were being sold in sheriff sales. Sugar production was in its infancy and had produced a bumper crop in 1868.

Work men drilling for water in New Orleans struck gas. The state Constitutional Convention was in session in New Orleans. The Democratic Party was formed as an anti-radical party to inject sanity and reason into an insane world. The party was holding its first convention in New Orleans during March of 1868.

According to one newspaper headline, the " 'Gumbo Convention' cooked up a new constitution." The price of gold was up, and new sugar mill and evaporator were being advertised that would make 1,500 pounds of dry sugar and two barrels of molasses in just 24 hours. This equipment was available for purchase in New Iberia or Franklin for less than $350.

Congress, on June 25, 1868, adopted an act removing Louisiana Gov. Joshua Baker and Lt. Governor Albert Voorhies from office. Congress appointed Henry C. Warmoth as governor and Oscar J. Dunn as lieutenant governor. The orders were dated June 27, 1868 from the 5^th Military District War Department, Washington, D.C.

Amid the chaos in the mid-1800s, Lake Charles was thriving. Published reports note that Lake Charles "improved more rapidly in the two years following the War than in the previous 10 years."

It was during this period that two men migrated to Lake Charles who would have a lasting impact on its economy and its future.

Jabez Bunting Watkins may well have been one of the most influential people in development of Southwest Louisiana and in the establishment of a port in Lake Charles, and Seaman A. Knapp may have been a close second.

Lake Charles was little more than a village dependent on sawmills for its livelihood when Watkins came to Southwest Louisiana in 1883. Calcasieu Parish was nothing more than uninhibited prairie, marsh and woodland. He left a legacy of commercial development, rice production and farming. Lake Charles was poised for growth.

Watkins was an entrepreneur, a promoter and a developer with offices in London, New York, Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, the Dakota Territory and Lawrence, Kansas. He was a lawyer who engaged in diverse business ventures, according to a paper written by Elmer E. Shutts and presented to the Southwest Louisiana Historical Society.

He recognized the potential inherent in Louisiana’s vast natural resources and established an office in Lake Charles.

Shortly after arriving in Lake Charles, Watkins formed the North American Land and Timber Company and sold $2.5 million in stock to English investors. He used these funds to acquire vast tracts of prairie lands, and eventually acquired more than one million acres of property in the name of NAL&TC.

His goal in Southwest Louisiana was to create an environment for colonists from northern Untied States, from France and from Holland to settle and farm.

Watkins had the foresight to convince highly educated successful businessmen and educators to share his vision for Southwest Louisiana. He looked to England, Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa and other universities for men who were prominent in their professions.

Men who were tops in their field flocked to Southwest Louisiana to share his dream. Such notables included Frank Shutts, a civil engineer who would later establish Shutts Engineering Firm. Professor Seaman Asahel Knapp, an agricultural specialist and one time President of Iowa State College of Agriculture came to teach others to farm the land. Frank Roberts, who was a financier and graduate of Ames College, came. Grant Mutersbaugh, who would establish a lumber planing mill in Lake Charles, came. At Watkins’s request others, also migrated to Lake Charles in the late 1880s.

Watkins had a vision of reclaiming thousands of acres of marshland in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes to make the land fit for colonization.

It was reported in the Lake Charles Weekly American-Press that he built drainage ditches, canals and levees to reclaim the land. He brought in heavy equipment, such as giant steam shovels, on 15 dredge boats to turn 10,000 acres of marshland into rice patties.

He built levees around thousands of acres of marshland and cut east-west canals at half mile intervals, through the marsh, Shutts said in a paper. He hoped to entice farmers from Holland and the mid-west to relocate to Southwest Louisiana to operate these farms.

He purchased the New York American in 1887 and published editions in New York and Lake Charles, extolling the virtues of the untamed land. By 1887 the Watkins Syndicate (as he was being called) was ready to sell tracts of land.

He engaged the services of Knapp and others to subdivide the land into five and ten acre farms, all of which were within two to five miles of town. He offered the farms to the public for a cash payment of $200, the balance of the cost could be paid in installments. No record is available to give us the total price of each farm.

Watkins began a national advertising campaign to bring people to Calcasieu Parish. It is said that he spent $200,000 in advertising Calcasieu Parish, making Lake Charles the best advertised city in the United States.

It was reported that in 1885 the “land magnate” hosted 30 newspaper owners and special writers from major cities in the east and central United States to promote his reclamation project to bring investment capital to the area. According to an article that appeared in the Lake Charles American Press in 1921, 40,000 copies of Watkins’ paper were distributed monthly. He relocated his paper to Lake Charles in 1888 and renamed it the Lake Charles American.

Shutts wrote that in 1892-93, Watkins designed an exhibit car, filled it with products from Southwest Louisiana and sent it through Kansas, Iowa and Illinois. Hundreds of people were attracted to this area because of this traveling exhibit. During the World’s Fair, NAL&TC distributed 500,000 circulars describing the opportunities abounding in Southwest Louisiana.

Watkins felt the future of Southwest Louisiana lay in the construction of railroads to move people and cargo across this vast country. Without rail transportation, Southwest Louisiana was entirely dependent on water transportation. Watkins felt this limited the opportunities for commerce and growth of the area.

Watkins was perhaps the first to suggest establishing a deepwater port at the Calcasieu Pass. Water rates to New Orleans were high and Southern Pacific Railroad’s rail monopoly hurt business in Lake Charles. He proposed extending the Watkins railroad to the Gulf and establishing a deepwater port at the Calcasieu Pass. He felt that a Calcasieu Outlet would be beneficial to a deepwater port.

As early as the late 1880s, Watkins was planning a railroad linking Lake Charles to Kansas City, Missouri to eliminate the monopoly Southern Pacific Railroad held in rail transportation. He also wanted to provide more favorable freight rates.

In April 1888, Lake Charles Mayor A. L. Rein issued and order calling for an ad valorem election to be held on the 20^th day of September 1880. The proceeds of the millage would be used for the construction of the Kansas City, Watkins and Gulf Railroad branch into Lake Charles. This section of railroad was completed and later became a part of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

By 1892 and 1893, the Kansas City, Watkins and Gulf Railroad extended from Lake Charles to Alexandria, a distance of 100 miles.

This section of railroad was merged with the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company in 1909 and later became part of the Missouri Pacific line also.

He proposed extending his railroad to the Cameron Ridge, but Watkins’ vision of a railroad stretching all the way from Alexandria, Louisiana to Cameron, Louisiana was never realized, Shutts said in his report to the Historical Society. The railroad turned west into Lake Charles when Watkins ran out of money for the project.

Ten years later others conceived of the idea of building another north/south railroad terminating in Lake Charles. The project would be financed by Holland stockbrokers hence the names DeQuincy and DeRidder (names of Dutch origin). This later became a part of the Kansas City Southern Railroad. Because of local opposition to the concept, this railroad terminated in Port Arthur, Texas.

English investors financed most of Watkins railroad, and towns along its route reflect their English origin.

Building a railroad was only one of his many enterprises. His other ventures included building the first bank in Lake Charles. He built and operated a Bank on Watkins Boulevard, now Enterprise. In 1885, he constructed the Watkins Bank building on the corner of Hodges and Broad streets. He established the Orange Land Company in Texas, constructed eight town sites along the Watkins Railroad and built and operated a sugar refinery east of Lake Charles near the site that is now the Chennault International Airport. He built the first street railway system (the Steam Dummy Line) which ran north on Watkins Boulevard, then turned west on Broad Street to the lake. Streetcars would run in Lake Charles until well after the turn of the century.

The population of the small village had increased more than 400 percent during the decade following Watkins’ ventures in Lake Charles. Lake Charles had a population of 100 people when Watkins arrived in 1883. By the end of the decade the population had increased to 3,000.

According to his obituary, which appeared in the February 11, 1921 issue of the Lake Charles Weekly American-Press, Watkins was born in Pennsylvania on June 15, 1845. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Ann Arbor, Michigan. After graduation, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas and returned there in 1873. In Lawrence he established the Watkins National Bank and the Watkins Mortgage Company. Until his death in 1921, he would divide his time between Lake Charles and Lawrence, Kansas.

When Watkins persuaded Dr. Seaman A. Knapp to leave his home in Iowa to farm Louisiana’s marshes, he virtually insured that Southwest Louisiana would eventually build a deepwater. Because of his efforts, Southwest Louisiana would become the rice capital of the country, producing more than other regions combined.

Knapp was not the first to recommend rice production for Southwest Louisiana, but he was the first to mechanize the industry.

Knapp was born in New York on December 16.1833. He achieved Phi Beta Kappa at Union College in New York and graduated in 1856. Following graduation, he taught Latin and Greek at the Fort Edward Collegiate Institute at Fort Edward, a boarding school in New York. His wife, the former Maria Hotchkiss, taught art and modern languages, Rodney Cline wrote in his Master of Arts thesis, The Life and Work of Seaman A. Knapp.

In 1859, Knapp became a junior partner in the school and remained there until 1863. In 1863, he returned to the preparatory school of his youth.

He farmed briefly, then turned to preaching. He remained in the ministry until he became a superintendent of the Iowa State School for the Blind in Vinton, Iowa in 1875. He returned to farming that same year. He also began editing a farm journal advocating crop rotation and the use of high quality seed stock. In 1879, he became professor of Agriculture at the University of Iowa at Ames, Iowa.

It was at this time that he became interested in scientific experimentation in agriculture and advocated the federal government establish Experiment Stations in various states. Knapp felt that improved methods of farming and farm management could be greatly enhanced through scientific research.

Because of his lobbying efforts, in 1887 Congress finally passed legislation authorizing and funding the program.

Knapp became president of the Iowa State College of Agriculture in 1883 but continued as Professor of Agriculture.

In his 20 years in Iowa, Knapp was a farmer, a preacher, an editor, a teacher, and a school administrator. He was instrumental in the passage of legislation establishing the Agricultural Experiment Stations. He now held an honorary doctorate and had gained a reputation in his field.

One of his colleagues at Ames was Alexander Thompson, Professor of Mechanics and Superintendent of the Workshop. Thompson was also the brother-in-law of J. B. Watkins. Watkins and Knapp developed a business relationship, and in 1886 Knapp moved to Lake Charles to assist in the development of the North American Land and Timber Company where he was employed as an assistant manager.

As a practical and experimental agriculturist, Knapp was charged with finding crops that could be grown in Southwest Louisiana and with assisting in the colonization of this region.

Through his research, he learned that rice would be the most suitable crop for the land that had previously been thought unsuitable for farming in Calcasieu Parish. He began researching methods to improve efficiency and increase rice production.

His research efforts resulted in the mechanization of the rice industry. Farmers plowed, planted, harvested, threshed and milled rice using power driven machines.

Louisiana had been a leading producer of rice as early as 1861, but most of the rice was grown in the New Orleans area along the Mississippi River. Rice production more than doubled the first year after Knapp’s methods were adopted. Production continued to increase each year, thereafter.

According to United States Department of Agriculture figures for 1891-1898, the annual rice production in Louisiana was 104,348,671 pounds. The three states nearest Louisiana in production, North and South Carolina and Georgia, produced a mere 40,000 pounds during the same period.

Mechanization increased rice production, but it also caused a 70 percent breakage rate, creating a need for new strains of rice that could withstand the new farming methods. Knapp noticed that the rice was being broken during the milling process. He also noticed that Japanese rice was not subject to the same type of breakage. When he was unable to purchase seed stock directly, he traveled to Japan to procure better varieties of rice for seed stock. Rice farming was well established in Calcasieu Parish when Knapp left Watkins to begin other ventures. Knapp’s great granddaughter Mary Savoy noted that he was a stern, disciplined man who would go to great lengths to accomplish his objectives.

He left Watkins in 1889 but continued his work with the rice industry. In 1889 he was instrumental in the establishment of the first rice mill in Lake Charles when he persuaded venture capitalists from New York to invest in this project.

At the same time, Knapp introduced the concept of merchant milling whereby the mill purchased raw rice from the farmer. In the past, farmers paid for the milling then sold the milled rice at market price.

Merchant milling changed the method in which farmers were paid for their crops. In the past, the farmer assumed the risk, but Knapp advocated rice mills purchase unmilled rice from the farmer and assume the risk. He helped organized the Rice Association of America (later the American Rice Growers Association) to assist in this program.

According to Cline, Knapp purchased 2,700 acres of land from the federal government in 1887, then selected 160 acres of the 2,700 acres for a town site. In May 1888, the town was surveyed and plotted. The first store and post office were built. Lots were sold. Knapp called the town “Vinton” for Vinton, Iowa, where he and his family had lived for many years.

In 1891, Knapp and his associates established the Calcasieu Bank of Lake Charles. That same year, Knapp established the Lake Charles Rice Milling Co. According to Joseph Cannon Bailey in Seaman A. Knapp, the Lake Charles rice mill was the first mill of its size to be built west of the Mississippi.

Knapp left a legacy of progress and development for Southwest Louisiana. He was instrumental in the construction of a rice mill in Lake Charles, the immigration of farmers from the mid-west, the establishment of a bank, the rice association and the Farmers Cooperative Extension Service.

Southwest Louisiana became the leading producer of rice in the United States due in part to procedures designed and implemented by Watkins and Knapp. With increased rice production, came the need for new markets and even more pressure for a deepwater port in Lake Charles.

J. B. Watkins was one of the first to irrigate rice patties. S. A. Knapp built on his ideas, and the two established a viable rice industry in the five parishes comprising Southwest Louisiana.

The rice photos at the end of this article were used in promoting rice as a substitute for potatoes in the diet. Maria Hotchkiss described the use, preparation and cooking of rice in an introduction to a cookbook published in 1902. The photographs of the rice industry were taken in 1901.

Long before Watkins arrived in Calcasieu Parish, business leaders saw the need for improved transportation. As early as 1868, business leaders were crying for a railroad to connect New Orleans with the Sabine River.

Articles in the New Orleans Times wrote of requests to complete the Opelousas Railroad, a distance of 165 miles. The Opelousas Railroad had been constructed in the New Orleans area but did not extend as far west as Lake Charles.

In a letter to the editor dated July 11, 1868, the author wrote of the need for rail transportation. The author wrote that the 20 steam sawmills in Calcasieu Parish “furnish chief supply” of Galveston lumber. Of the 20 sawmills, 14 were located on the Calcasieu River with the remainder being located on the Mermentau and Sabine rivers.

According to the writer, “30 schooners carry lumber from Calcasieu to Galveston and with a fair wind, the voyage is made in 24 hours.”

Southwest Louisiana was also crying for a way to move its lumber from mills in Lake Charles to other markets. Congress officially created a port in Southwest Louisiana in 1868, when it made Calcasieu Pass a port of entry and established a customs office in Cameron.

In 1876, Congress authorized the improvement of Calcasieu Pass. Before the turn of the century, the pass was dredged and jetties constructed. Schooners laden with lumber from local mills could now navigate the shallow river. Schooners headed to Mexico, the east coast of the United States and to Continental Europe could use the ship channel, but this was not enough to ensure the growth of Southwest Louisiana.

Portions of the Intracoastal Waterway were complete and connected the Calcasieu and Sabine rivers, but the 14-foot depth restricted river traffic to all but shallow draft vessels.

In 1916 Lake Charles officials unsuccessfully requested federal funding for construction of a deepwater port and in a November election voters voted overwhelming support for a proposed amendment to the State Constitution providing for one in Southwest Louisiana. Voters also approved a special water works tax for this purpose.

By the 1920s however, Lake Charles was dying. The staggering depression took its toll on this small struggling community. The price for agricultural products was down, Robert Brantley Cagle, Jr. wrote in his essay, The Political Development of the City of Lake Charles 1890-1930. Lake Charles was in financial crisis. By 1925 it was feared the city would not survive. Saw mills had virtually depleted the vast forests of virgin pine, and lumber mills had closed.

A deepwater campaign committee was formed. Members of the committee included W. P. Weber, Frank Roberts, S. T. Woodring, Rudolph Krause , John L. Henning, Leon Locke, H. G. Chalkley, C. C. Moss and T. W. Gardner.

According to the Lake Charles American Press, the committee met on February 10, 1920 at the Majestic Hotel. It was an “assemblage of business men representing all the wealth and ambition the city boasts of,” the paper reported in the next day’s edition.

The group pledged to sell bonds for the construction of a deepwater channel, and Kiwanis President Elias Kaufman pledged “every member should do everything in his power to make this work possible by purchase of bonds or any work necessary.”

In 1920 rice acreage doubled from 4,000 to 8,000 acres. The area saw records in oil production. Southwest Louisiana had some of the most productive oil and gas fields in the United States in 1919, but it lacked the ability to move cargo.

In 1921 the people of Lake Charles made a commitment to build a deep water port on the Calcasieu River. This marked the beginning of a phenomenal change for Southwest Louisiana. The Louisiana Legislature in 1924 passed legislation creating the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District; the five-member Board of Commissioners for the newly authorized Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District held its organizational meeting January 22, 1925 in the Association of Commerce Building.

The first Commissioners were Guy Beatty, Frank Roberts, Rudolph Krause, Willis Page Weber and Elias R. Kaufman.

Commissioners would serve six-year terms. The terms were staggered with Commissioners being appointed every two years. Kaufman was appointed to serve a two-year term, Beatty and Weber would serve four-year terms and Roberts and Krause would serve six-year terms. Each appointment thereafter would be for six years.

The Board elected Beatty as its first president, Weber as vice president, Kaufman as secretary and Krause as treasurer.

Beatty would finish his four-year term on the Dock Board and be replaced with Charles P. Martin. Martin served on the Dock until his death in October 1930. Beatty was again appointed to the Dock Board in January 1931.

In addition to his duties as Dock Board president, Beatty was president and publisher of the Lake Charles American Press. He was a pioneer newspaper man who founded the Lake Charles Daily Press in 1894.

He was active in the community and was a civic and community leader, active in the Association of Commerce, the Rotary Club, the Library Board and the Beatty Brokerage Company. He also served as president of Rice News.

He was born in Mason, New York on Nov. 6, 1867, the son of Rowland John Beatty (native of Enniskillen, Ireland) and Elene Frances (Holmes) Beatty.

He came to Lake Charles at the request of J. F. Reed in 1894 to start a newspaper. He began his career in the business as a printer in Delavan, Illinois in 1882. It was there that he met and married the former Bernadine Pratt.

He remained on the Dock Board until July 5, 1940 when he, W. P. Weber and E. R. Kaufman resigned at the request of Governor Huey Long who wanted to make his own appointments to the Board.

Willis Page Weber came to Lake Charles from Kansas in the late 1800s when the father of his “good friend A. O. King wrote a letter to his son and said Southwest Louisiana is a land of opportunity,” Weber’s great grandson Robert Noland said. "Pack up your belongings and come to Southwest Louisiana," the elder King wrote, "and oh, by the way, tell your good friend Willis Page Weber to sell his horses and buy oxen." King was a traveling preacher who had been all through Louisiana’s bayou country and saw the potential for development.

Because the land in Southwest Louisiana was too tough for horses, oxen were used for much of the labor. “Well. My grandfather did just that. He bought a boxcar. He packed up the furniture, his family, the oxen and everything they owned and came to Lake Charles where he started a retail grocery business then a wholesale grocery business.”

Weber’s varied interests included farming and timber. According to Noland, Weber helped purchase and built railroads and had built 90 miles of trackage on four different rail mains.

Noland said the Webers owned the Barham and Hodge Lumber and Shingle Railroads, which were later merged and sold to Missouri Pacific Railroad. “In exchange for that, he got a seat on the Missouri Board of Directors and an agreement that they would pull his private railcar anywhere he wanted to go in their system. They also agreed to make him a part of their interchange agreement with other railroads.”

Weber, D.A. Kelly, the Chamber and other businessmen and community leaders recognized the need for a port in Southwest Louisiana to move cargo to and from Lake Charles. Prior to the opening of the Port of Lake Charles all waterborne cargo was taken to Beaumont and was barged to Lake Charles.

According to the Lake Charles American Press, Weber was the chairman of the deepwater committee in 1922. He led the flight for passage of a $2.75 million bond issue for dredging the ship channel to 30 feet deep and 125 feet wide.

He took a group of business men to Washington in his private railcar to lobby for the original ship channel, Noland said. He lobbied to convince the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (then War Department) to dig the original ship channel.

He made speeches in Lake Charles and in surrounding parishes. In touting the advantages of passing the tax, Weber spoke of factories relocating to this area and the reduced cost of fertilizer to farmers. To make his point Weber built the first manufacturing plant on the Calcasieu River, the Lake Charles American Press wrote in a 1925 editorial praising his efforts in promoting a deepwater channel.

In 1925, Kelly-Weber purchased 10 acres of property from Krause and Managan to build the plant. The property was located in Westlake immediately below the Krause and Managan lumber yard.

“I remember as a child every Sunday everyone would get together at Mr. Weber’s house on Pujo Street. I could remember conversations on how much better it was once the channel was here,” Noland reminisced. Before the channel was dredged and the port built, all cargo came through Texas. Southwest Louisiana was served by east and west rail transportation but not waterborne commerce until the opening of the Ship Channel.

Farmers Rice Mill, one of the original shippers through the Port of Lake Charles continues to be a major player in its rice shipments. Traditionally Farmers has been the largest break-bulk shipper through the Port.

According to Noland, the original mill contained a pumping station to irrigate rice fields. The pump was also used to mill the rice. The rice mill was
co-located with a pumping unit, which had a steam engine and a central shaft with a belt.

In the Spring, the belt would be on the end of the shaft to turn the pump. Once the fields were folded, that belt would be removed and other belts connected to the shaft to provide for the milling machines.

Weber was about 6 feet tall and was a relatively astute businessman, who became involved in a number of ventures. He founded a newspaper, the Southwest Citizen, which has since closed. He built the Weber building and the Charleston Hotel relatively simultaneously. The two were across the street from each other, and he would go back and forth to oversee construction. The Weber Building, a six-story office building has been torn down. The Charleston Hotel is currently under renovation.

He and some associates formed the Lake Charles Amusement Company, later the Southern Amusement Company. At one time they owned and operated 350 movie theaters spread across the southern United States. Weber built the Powell Building on the site of the Southern Amusement Company. They had planned to build a six story office building on Pujo Street and Lakeshore Drive.

In spite of his many activities, he found time for recreation. “Mr. Weber had a house boat here; tied up at Shell Beach pier on pylons. She was 150 feet. Triple storied. He used tow boats to push her up river near English Bayou to go duck hunting. The White Mallard was the name,” Noland noted.

Elias Raas Kaufman was a native of Lake Charles and remained here throughout his life. He was born October 16, 1889, the son of Leopold Kaufman and Pauline (Raas) Kaufman of New Orleans.

The elder Kaufman was a native of Alsace Lorraine, France and was a former French educator who migrated to Louisiana in 1871 to engage in merchandising and banking. He met and married Pauline Raas in New Orleans.

Kaufman obtained a preliminary education in Lake Charles schools and the Bowen Preparatory School in Nashville, Tennessee. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University and became a Phi Beta Kappa in 1902.

In 1903 he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University, then a Bachelor of Law degree from Columbia University in 1912.

He returned to Lake Charles and joined the law firm of Pujo and Williamson. In 1913, he established a private practice and maintained his law practice alone until 1939 when he hired an assistant who became a junior partner, then a full member of the law firm of Kaufman and Anderson.

In March 1913, he married Rosalind B. Fish, the daughter of Alexander Fish a Nashville, Tennessee merchant.

Kaufman was active in the community and served as one of the original members of the Board of Commissioners for the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District. He served as the Port’s attorney for much of his tenure on the Board.

He was president of the Lake Charles Association of Commerce, president of the Lake Charles Chapter of B'nai B'rith, vice president of the Jewish Temple, a member of the Lake Charles Golf Club, and he was a Mason.

Rudolph Krause was in industrial and banking circles in Lake Charles for more than half a century. He was president of Krause and Managan Lumber Co., LTD, a direct successor of Perkins and Miller Lumber Co.

He came to Lake Charles in 1882 and went into service of Perkins and Miller in 1890. He was promoted to various positions within the company, learning the industry from the bottom up. In 1895, after the retirement of J. A. Landry, he was made treasurer. In 1900 he became president. And in December 1906, the name was changed to Krause and Managan to reflect the company’s new ownership.

Its headquarters were moved from Westlake to Lake Charles and for a time the company maintained retail lumber yards in 12 other cities in Southwest Louisiana. In 1928, the retail yards were incorporated as a separate company, Krause and Managan, Inc. (Krause became president of this company also.)

Krause was born in Schlawe, Prussia on June 26, 1863, the son of Rudolph Krause, Sr. and Augusta (Kuehn) Krause.

He attended public schools in his native land and was fluent in English, German and French.

His interests included being vice president of Krause-Foster, Inc. (an investment firm), Chairman of the Board of the Lake Charles Rice Milling Co., president of the Calcasieu Building and Loan Association, vice president of Murray Brooks Hardware Co., treasurer of the local chapter of the Red Cross, commissioner of the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District, president of the Association of Commerce, Mason, Odd Fellows, Rotarians, Alderman at large 1910-1912 and president of the Board of the Lake Charles Carnegie Library.

Frank Roberts was the fifth member of the Board of Commissioners for the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District.

According to his obituary that appeared in the Lake Charles American Press December 12, 1941, Roberts was a “pioneer banker and civic leader for half a century.” At the time of his death, he was Board Chairman of the Calcasieu-Marine National Bank. He was one of the original members of the Board of Commissioners of the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District, was a member of the deepwater committee for the first channel dredging and an original member of the Lake Charles Association of Commerce. He was one of the founders of the Country Club. He came to Lake Charles in 1890 from Vinton, Iowa after graduating from Iowa State University.

Louisiana Legislative Act 67 established the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District in regular session in 1924. Two years later, on November 30, 1926, Port officials and community leaders met at Transit Shed No. 1 to officially dedicate the newly constructed facilities.

It was a day of celebration. A day for rejoicing. A day for pomp and ceremony. Dignitaries from all across the country either joined the celebration or sent wires congratulating the Nation’s newest port.

The day began with boat races, parades and other festivities. Thousands of people gathered at the Port of Lake Charles for their first view of the nation’s newest port.

The first Board of Commissioners faced a monumental task. These five men were charged with building a port. It was under their leadership that the first wharves, transit sheds and warehouses were built. Land was purchased. Bonds were sold to fund construction and dredging projects. They hired an engineer to oversee construction and a port director to manage day to day operations.

“He was a wonderful man,” his daughter Elizabeth (Shutts) Woodward said about her father Elmer E. Shutts, the port’s first engineer. “Father was rather vain. He thought he looked wonderful. He did too,” she added. “He was a short feisty guy,” former partner George Webb, Sr. said. He was a member of a pioneer family and was a registered civil engineer.

Whatever else he was, Elmer Shutts was a visionary with the drive and ambition to fulfill his dreams for Southwest Louisiana. One of three sons of Frank Shutts, he joined the engineering firm his father founded soon after arriving in Lake Charles in 1886.

“The most important thing he did in connection with the Port. He built it,” his daughter said. “The Port was so important to my Father that he built his house right across from it.”

In the early days of Port development, different people had different ideas regarding its construction. “Everyone was arguing and everyone thought they should have a part of it (Port construction). The Board hired my father as engineer. He used my uncles, also. He used everyone they had in the office. My father was very particular about who was doing what.”

Woodward said keeping people working together was probably the most difficult part of being the engineer for the port. He traveled all over the country, went to other ports to see how they operated and traveled to Washington many times on port-related issues.

He was dedicated to the Port and spent most of his time overseeing construction, often taking his small daughter with him on his rounds. “I can remember my father taking me to the port with him when I was a child. I can remember riding my tricycle in the shed (Transit Shed 1), she reminisced. “My father would always take it (the tricycle) in the car with us. Once I rode down the end (of Shed No. 1) and saw another one (transit shed) going in around the corner.”

He and his brothers Fred and Harry all worked toward the dredging of a ship channel and the construction of a deepwater port.

Shutts was port engineer for much of the early construction. He was responsible for the design and supervision of the construction of port facilities at the City Docks, the Industrial Canal and the bulk terminal.

By the time he resigned in 1967, the Port had grown from two transit sheds and wharves at Walnut Grove (City Docks) to six transit sheds and wharves. The channel had been deepened and widened.

The Port started with a channel that was 30 feet deep, 125 feet wide and provided access to the Gulf of Mexico through the Intracoastal Waterway to the Sabine River. By 1967, the channel had been straightened, providing a direct route to the Gulf. It had also been dredged to 40 feet and widened to 400 feet.

He provided the foundation for the television tower downtown, which is still there, Webb, said. He helped build the original silos for the petroleum coke plant (now the public grain elevator) and designed and supervised the construction of the conveyors.

While working as a consulting engineer for the Port of Lake Charles, Shutts received a $500 monthly retainer and his 6 percent fee for designing and supervising construction. Webb noted that it was not uncommon for Shutts and Sons to design construction projects, write bid specifications and never receive a “nickel” from the project. Shutts never charged his clients for a project until the first month of construction was completed. “If they didn’t build it, we didn’t receive any money for it,” Webb added.

Shutts was active in the community, and was one of the founders and presidents of the Louisiana Boys Village. The Lake Charles American Press reported that Shutts received the Andrew M. Lockett Medal in 1973 for his civic activities, particularly for his work with Boys Village.

As a member of the State Board of Commerce, he was instrumental in locating several plants to this area. He was president of the Lake Charles Association of Commerce, Louisiana Historical Society, Community Chest, the Lake Charles Boat Club, the U. S. Power Squadron and numerous other organizations.

His civic activities extended to community matters as well. During World War II, he invited soldiers to his home.

“He and Mrs. Mickey [Michie] who ran the Majestic Hotel in Lake Charles entertained soldiers from Chennault every weekend,” Woodward said. “She would bring them to his house and then take then back to the hotel to feed them. They did this all summer.”

He was born in Lake Charles on November 1, 1902 and remained in Lake Charles except for absences due to college and military service and travel. Shutts was in the first graduating class of engineers from Rice Institute in Texas and was the first graduate to receive a civil engineering degree from Rice. The world was at war when he graduated in 1916. Following graduation, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

He and his brothers were equal partners in F. Shutts’ Sons. He and his brothers helped in the industrial development of Southwest Louisiana.

Little is known about H. J. Luhn other than he was appointed port director September 14, 1926 and remained in that position until he resigned December 21, 1928. The City Directory for 1926 and 1927 lists him as having a phone and living at 920 Broad Street (the Harry Huber House).

The construction firm of Banta Mutersbaugh left little information. Grant Mutersbaugh , a nephew of J. B. Watkins, came to Lake Charles before the turn of the century. His brother was a contractor and engineer, as was his son Alonzo M. Mutersbaugh.

The construction firm of Banta Mutersbaugh was awarded the first contract in connection with the construction of the first wharf at the Port of Lake Charles. On February 10, 1926, the Dock Board awarded Banta Mutersbaugh a contract in the amount of $165,497.11 for the construction of an 800-foot dock.

The Port of Lake Charles officially opened on November 30, 1926. The day was celebrated with pomp and ceremony.

Headlines in the days before the opening proclaimed “Battle Cruiser Cleveland, with over 300 Blue Jackets at Port Lake Charles, Nov. 29-30.” Other headlines “75 ocean-going oil ships have entered new Port,” and “Achievements Totaling $6,450,000 to Be Celebrated November 29-30.”

Some of the thunder of opening day had been stolen months earlier when the S. S. Sewall’s Point arrived in Lake Charles under her own steam. It was a day of celebration.

A headline in the Lake Charles American Press on April 4, 1926, informed its readers: “First Ocean-going Vessel to Port Lake Charles Coming Next Week” and “Sewall’s Point on way with cargo to city, going under her own power.”

The Sewall was bringing fertilizer and goods to be discharged at Kelly-Weber and Co., a wholesale grocery company. Part of her cargo had been discharged in Port Arthur, Texas for customers of Kelly-Weber and Co. in Southeast Texas.

An editorial writer in the Lake Charles American Press noted that “the Sewall’s Point has come the full distance of the nation’s new waterway and itself bears witness in a most material way that dreams, when backed by an unselfish public spirit and the necessary finance do come true.”

The approach of the first steamer was heralded as the first of thousands to come. The opening of the Port and the Ship Channel were seen as a new era for industrial development in Calcasieu Parish.

Lake Charles was seen as the logical center for rice shipments because 75 percent of rice grown in the United States was grown and milled within a 60-mile radius of Lake Charles.

The annual average rice production in 1925 was 12,000,000 bags weighing 200 pounds each or 1.2 million tons. Seven million bags (700,000 tons) were produced in Louisiana and six million (600,000 tons) of those were produced in Southwest Louisiana.

According to an article appearing in the Lake Charles American Press, 625,396 bales of cotton produced in 1925 were grown west of the Mississippi.

At 500 pounds to the bale, 156,349 pounds of that amount were grown in the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District.

People came and went. The Port continued to grow and develop. Howard Neely joined the Port in 1974 as general superintendent. According to Neely, the Board hired E. J. Christman as port director one day and the next day hired him. He held that position for many years, working up through the ranks to finally become a port director.

The Port of Lake Charles was primarily a rice port when he was hired. During the ensuing years, port officials worked successfully to diversify the Port’s cargo base and to secure shipments of federal cargo. Shipments of wheat and flour added to its cargo base.

“This was a rice port,” said Neely, who worked for the Port for 26 years. He added that rice comprised 80 percent of the cargo being handled at the Port.

Neely said he enjoyed the traveling and meeting people from all over the world. One of the largest rice shippers in the world had offices in New York. “He would call and say come see me. I’d go, and he would always give me a big order of rice - usually 20,000 to 30,000 tons to be shipped all over the world.”

Neely grew up in Paragould, Arkansas and went to work for Continental Railroad after he finished his education. When the company began laying off workers, Neely was out of a job. He was rehired as a secretary in the office. “That only lasted about four months,” he laughed.

In 1939, Neely came to Lake Charles to start the city bus system. By 1974, the economy had taken a downturn, and “I could see the handwriting on the wall and saw the company was going out of business. I decided it was time for a change,” he noted. He said when Wilmer Boudreau and Frank Kelly talked with him about joining the Port, he decided to move on.

Neely was with the Port when the rock grinding plant was built to accommodate the oil well people. The oil industry needed the barite ore in drilling oil wells. “We agreed to build the plant, but we needed to find someone who knew how to run one.” Neely said he and several staff members went to Florida to study grinding operations.

The Port also built storage warehouses in Westlake and at the City Docks during the time he was at the Port. Twenty warehouses were needed to store rice for the federal government. He was a part of the development of the Industrial Canal and the Port's bulk terminal.

Henry Pugh was also a part of the Port’s growth. He was assistant port director when the Industrial Canal was built in the 1960s.

According to Pugh, the City Docks contained six docks. Highway 90 crossed the river at what is now Transit Shed 15 and Berth 15. The Daiseybel bar was located in the Highway 90 curve where it crossed to the east side of the river.

Pugh noted that longshoremen often visited Daiseybel’s after work. Horace Austin, founder of Lake Charles Stevedores, worked hard and played hard, Pugh related. He often stayed late because of the number of ships calling at the Port. One night he stopped by Daiseybel’s and stayed too late. His wife awakened and he was preparing for bed. “She said ‘Oh, Horace you don’t have to go out again so early do you?' So he had to go out again,” Pugh related with a laugh.

According to Pugh the draw bridge over the Calcasieu River at the Port often malfunctioned. “You would get it up, then you couldn’t get it down, or you wouldn’t be able to get it up.” This was a real problem for tugs pushing barges in the River.

Tug boats captains didn’t take kindly to this because the string of barges couldn’t be stopped the way one would a car. “A reporter came here from New Orleans and reported someone from one of the barges firing at the bridge. It really happened,” Pugh insists.

Highway 90 was the man transportation route from New Orleans to Houston. The highway crossed the river at the Port’s City Docks, went through downtown over what is now Shell Beach Drive and across the marshes. The highway across the marsh was sometimes flooded, Pugh said. “Most of that was before my time, but I’ve heard the stories,” Pugh added.