Among the largest ranches of Calcasieu are those of Aladin Vincent, Oscar, David, Malachi and Madison Lyons, in the western portion of the parish.  Mr. Aladin Vincent says he has turned three-year-old steers into the market, weighting from eight to nine hundred pounds, which he considered all profit to him, except the expense of branding and gathering for market.  The Perrys also, in this section, are large cattle owners.  The most of these are also raising horses, some merely for their own use, others for the market.  North of these may be found other large cattle owners; perhaps the largest north of the Southern Pacific Railroad are the Hon. Wm. M. Perkins, Mr. W. E. Gill and the Iles.

Coming east to the Calcasieu River, we find Watkins’ ranch.  This ranch embraces several ranches of bygone days.  His purchase in 1884 for the English syndicate embraced a large tract of land on which several ranchmen kept large herds of cattle and ponies.  After the purchase was made, the ranchmen either sold out bodily to Mr. Watkins or moved their stock to other fields.  Besides these are a number of smaller ranches, such as the Hawkeye ranch north of Welsh.  There are also quite a number in various portions of the parish engaged in sheep raising, and report their flocks in healthy condition.  One gentleman form Waxeyland, in Texas, says this section has largely the advantage over Waxeyland for sheep raising, as the land has sufficient sand in it to keep the dirt form accumulating around the feet, thereby causing foot rot.

            Fruit in Calcasieu. - The following on fruit culture is drawn from the editorials of the American:  Much has been written and talked about fruit raising in this country, and yet we are convinced that not one-half the citizens of this region, nor one-twentieth of the people of the United States, even dream of the wonderful possibilities we hope to see realized in the near future.

            The climate of Southwest Louisiana is well adapted to all semi-tropical fruits, and to most of those of the temperate zones.  Oranges, figs, and pomegranates do splendidly here and yield large returns. Olives will thrive and yield enormous incomes for a lifetime.  For peaches, pears, plums, grapes, blackberries, dewberries and strawberries, this climate can not be excelled on the continent.  Apples, especially of the summer and fall varieties, when grafted on quince, mayhaw or Leconte roots, do as well as they do in any country.  Mr. Derouen, on the Lacasine, has as fine success with apples as any one can wish, and there are many other examples of success in raising apples in this region.  We are convinced that it will pay to plant apples largely, but would advise that they be grafted on quince, mayhaw or Leconte roots.  We think it a good plan to graft pears of all kinds on the same roots.  The mayhaw, which is itself a valuable fruit, gives us one of the best stocks for grafting that we have.  Horticulturists are beginning to discover the value of the mayhaw in this respect, and we expect to see it more largely used in the future than in the past.

            Trees bear very young in this climate. Peaches will bear the second year from the seed; plums about the same.  Apples will bear the third year form the grafting.  Figs sometimes produce ripe fruit the first year from cuttings.  Oranges bear in about four years from grafts.

            As to profits it is hard to over-estimate.  Peaches will yield $1000 worth of fruit per acre three years after planting the budded trees, if well cultivated and cared for.  Oranges will do still better when they come into full bearing, which they do in about six or seven years after setting out.  Pears have produced at the rate of $2500 per acre when the tree was seven years old.  There is no telling what an acre of large fig trees well cared for will produce, but it will be enormous.   Fortunes can be made, as soon as we have communication north by rail, raising dewberries, blackberries and strawberries.

            In order to succeed in raising fruits, however, the ground must be prepared for the trees.  It must be thoroughly drained, and should be fertilized to secure the best results, although a measure of success may be obtained without.  There is no need of irrigation here.  In this respect we have the advantage of California, and in our opinion we will soon eclipse the famed Southern California region in fruit.  We undoubtedly have a grand future before us.

            After reading this article you will certainly be impressed with the idea that this section of country is particularly adapted to fruits.  There are no great extremes of heat or cold, and the rainfall is just about what it should be for successful fruit growing.  The trees grow to enormous size when properly cared for, and the fruits are delicious.  Varieties of pears that are considered in some sections as hardly third rate, when grown here are considered first class.  The flavor of the peach is considered as good here as those grown in any part of the United States.  Plums of various kinds, including the Japan plum, ripening usually in February, grow to great perfection.  This is the home of the fig, and the profits likely to accrue in a few years from fig culture will be large; indeed, by the evaporating process it is possible to make enormous profits out of the industry.  There are many others, but we will only notice the orange.  If the oranges grown by the natives here for many years past are a success, what can we say of the Oonshiu under intelligent cultivation?   Every variety of Japanese fruits that has been tried here succeeds remarkably well.  The horticulturists of Japan of all others lead the world.  They have arrived nearer to perfection in the fruit industry there, perhaps, than in any other place on the habitable globe.  They have schools of horticulture, in which the natives receive the highest training in tree culture.  Persons attending the world’s fair at Paris report seeing pine and cedar trees one hundred and fifty years old, and mere box plants; apple and pear trees more than one hundred years old, two feet high and laden with fruit.  It is here that the Oonshiu orange has been improved on for ages, until it is now next to perfection.  The orange in its natural or wild state was full of thorns; the fruit was of a bitter sour, full of seed, and the pulp and rind clinging closely together.  After ages of study and toil a tree has been perfected without thorns, a fruit without seed, with pulp and rind parting readily, and of a most delicate taste.  After all these excellent qualities had been perfected, they succeeded in bringing it into bearing pretty fair crops at the age of three years.  Finally they brought it up, by a slow process of grading, until it could be successfully grown in a climate of six months winter.

            This is the celebrated Oonshiu orange, said to be the most perfect orange now in cultivation.  But few have yet been introduced into our country, but, like the other fruits of Japan, it has shown itself true to name.  One writer says it stood the cold with him where barrels of water were frozen to solid ice, and where the thermometer must have gone to ten degrees below zero.  It is reported that a number of trees passed through the cold in Texas with the thermometer as low as zero.  Horticulturists in Texas have come to the conclusion that they can make this fruit a success almost all over the State.  This being the case, what will it be in our section on country, where it is peculiarly suited and where we already grow such perfect fruit out of the old native varieties?

            With lands her now at five to ten dollars per acre, a north and south railway from here to Kansas City, and the possibility of shipping this fruit in September and October (as it ripens earlier than other varieties), where, we ask, is there a better place to drive a stake for a home in the beautiful, delightful Sunny South? 

            The Fig. - We regard the fig as one of the most valuable fruits of this or any other country.  In their fresh state, when fully ripe, there is no other fruit that we know of that is so delicious and at the same time so healthful.  There is no other fruit we know of upon which human beings can live so well without any other food.  A person can not only live, but will grow fat upon a diet composed of exclusively of fresh figs.

            There is another thing about figs different from most other fruits, and that is, that the more a person used them the more he wants.  The first time a person unaccustomed to figs tastes them he may not relish them very well, but let him continue to eat them a few days and he will soon get so he will prefer them to any other fruit.  They are not only a first-class food fruit, but also possess medical virtue.  We verily believe that there its not much danger of sickness to any one who will eat all the fresh, ripe figs they can every day, and will be prudent in other things.

            But figs are not only valuable in their fresh state, but can be prepared in various ways for food.  They are excellent canned in self-sealing glass jars.  They make splendid preserves.  They are delicious when prepared by drying and pressed into boxes.  But perhaps the cheapest way in which figs can be prepared for keeping is by drying them by means of an evaporator.  They can be prepared in this way cheaply and speedily, and make the most delicious dried fruit in existence.  In preparing them in this way they should not be kept in the evaporator too long, but when partially dry should be pressed into boxes or bucket and permitted to go through a kind of sweat, when they are ready for use. 

            Southwestern Louisiana is especially adapted to figs.  Perhaps no country in the world can excel us in the production of this valuable fruit, and but few can equal us.  We had the pleasure of showing a Californian around a few days ago and among other things we examined the fig trees, loaded with their enormous crop of young figs.  Our California friend said, “You can undoubtedly beat us in figs.”

            Perhaps there is no other fruit that will produce as many barrels of fruit per acre as figs, and there is nothing in the fruit line more easily raised than fig trees.  All that is necessary is to cut limbs from the trees and stick them into the ground where you want your trees, and they will nearly every on grow.  By planting the different varieties it is possible to have an abundance of this luscious fruit from the latter part of June until December.

            We verily believe that one acre of fig trees five years old will make a comfortable support for an ordinary family.  We believe an acre of figs will produce more food for man, beast or fowl than an acre of almost any other produce grown.    Let us plant figs and plant them largely.

            This is the home of the fig.  There is no place in the South where they grow to greater perfection than in Southwest Louisiana.  The question has often been asked:  “What will you do with them after you raise them, as they will not bear transportation to any great distance?”  Some have recommended canning, but the last and seemingly the best is to evaporate them.  Mr. C. G. Pageot, of our city, conceived the idea last summer that with an evaporator he could in a few hours’ time produce a fig equal to the dried figs put up in other sections.  He made the experiment and showed us the fig after it had been through the evaporator.  We thought then, as he did, that it was a success.  He pressed these figs in two-pound boxes and put them away, and they are keeping as perfectly as when then were put up.  These figs were dried without any sugar added.  The family now who has a fig orchard can, without an outlay for an evaporator, put up their own figs, which will certainly be very profitable. 

            Rice Culture. - It is reported by the last census that Louisiana raised 500,000 pounds of rice; South Carolina, 100,000 pounds; Georgia 50,000; North Carolina 41,500; and Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, all told, 285,000.  Thus it will be seen that Louisiana produces more rice than all the other States of the Union put together.  This is doubtless true, or the census would not say so.  It is a truthful body (unless it be in regard to the population of large cities), and its statistical facts may be regarded as substantially correct.  Calcasieu is the banner parish of Louisiana in the cultivation of rice.  Much of its lands are specially adapted to rice. 

 

            The editor of the Jennings Reporter gives some figures on the acreage of rice planted in that part of the parish.  He estimates that between Lake Arthur on the south to China post office north of Jennings, and between the Mermentau River, the Nezpique and Grand Marias, there will be about nine thousand acres planted in rice, which, at ten barrels per acre, will give 90,000 barrels of rice and of this amount he expects 60,000 at least or about 400 car loads to be shipped form Jennings.  Two years ago only twenty-six car loads were shipped form Jennings; last year, one hundred car loads.  All this rice, should Jennings not get a rice mill, would eventually find its way to Lake Charles and be shipped north ward on the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railway.  This is only a small portion of the rice acreage of this parish, and every bushel raised in the parish should be hulled on mills here instead of being shipped to the New Orleans mills.

 

            Says the American on the same subject:  There is, perhaps, no section of country better adapted to rice culture than the lands of Calcasieu.  Rice culture is now attracting more attention than any other field crop.  The cultivation is simple, consisting principally of planting and flooding, and the profits are large.  Had we the space, we could give numerous instances of persons making enormous profits.

 

            Mr. R. Hall, of Cherokee, Iowa, purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land for $800.  Paid out for improvements about $450.  Total cost of land and improvements, $1250.  He rented the land for one-third, which was planted in rice, and realized for his third of the rice $1500.

 

            J. W. Rosteet reports on twenty-one acres of land planted in rice.  He gives the expense of ditching, levees, fencing, planting and harvesting at $457.68.  He sold his rice for $860, leaving a balance of $462.32

 

            We give these two instances, not that they are exceptions, for there are instances where much greater profits have been made, but because Mr. Rosteet is a native of this parish, and Mr. Hall a resident of Cherokee, Iowa, and a gentleman well known in many States in the North.

 

            The American has from its beginning told of the possibilities of Calcasieu parish as a rice growing country, and of the great profits to the farmer to be derived there from.  It has furthermore shown hat there is great wealth in sugar, fruits and many other products of the farm.  It is now beginning to realize the fulfillment of its dreams.  For years it was the universal opinion that rice could not be harvested by machinery; four years ago a rice machine was brought to the parish and tried with success.  It is only three years since William Deering & Co. started to improve their harvesters to adapt them to the rice farmer's use.  At that time Mr. E. S. Center advised his firm to enter this field, but they said to him, “You might as well send cotton presses to Manitoba as harvesters to Louisiana.”  Not discouraged, however, he persevered until he was successful, and now he says he can cut rice in eighteen inches of mud, and to back up his guarantee he has shipped into Southwest Louisiana a train load of the William Deering harvesters; a train load of twenty-two cars containing three hundred machines.  This is a grand demonstration of the development of Southwest Louisiana during the past three years.

 

            The train left Chicago on the 8^th inst., and was beautifully decorated with flags and flowers, and it is said to be the most beautiful freight train that ever entered the Southern States.  At every station along the route it was met by large crowds, who hailed it with cheers and speeches of welcome. Among these crowds the representative of the American looked for the old croaker, who always said, “You can’t make a living on a farm in this country,” “but where, oh where was he?”  “gone where the woodbine twineth.”  or dead with throat disease from overmuch croaking.  When the train arrived at Lake Charles, over a thousand people were at the depot to welcome the representatives of the Deering Company and the representatives of the press.

 

            Prof. Knapp, of Lake Charles, and Mr. Cary, of Jennings, made short addresses to the people on behalf of the Deering Company, which was followed by three rousing cheers for the company.

 

            Mr. H. C. Drew read an invitation from the citizens of Lake Charles to the representatives of the company and the press inviting them to a banquet to be given at the Hotel Howard in honor of the occasion.

 

            Since this train left Chicago, another consignment of the machines has been shipped and is on its way to Southwest Louisiana, and the agents are now receiving orders every day.  This, we will add, is the work of only one company.  The Osborne Company is also in the field, and while we do not know the amount of their sales they have no doubt been large.  So that not less than five or six hundred machines will be sold this year. The estimated crop of Calcasieu parish is 600,000 barrels, and if the increase next year should be as circumstances now indicate she will ship one million and a half barrels next year.

 

            Lumber Interests. - Upon the lumber interests of the South, and which seem to center in Calcasieu parish, the American has this to say:  Lumber is now one of the South’s greatest resources, and stands very prominent in Southwest Louisiana.  We have time and again treated on this subject, but an industry of such vast possibilities making such a rapid progress, cannot be laid before the people too often. 

 

          We have in the South a greater variety of timbers than the North, and the advantages of manufacturing are far superior to those of the North.  These facts have been recognized long ago, and the timber lands have largely increased in value in the last few years.  The timber here is adapted to almost every branch of manufacture into which wood enters. For building material our Southern timber stands par excellent.  Car building, furniture, ship building, railroad ties and bridge timbers, and lastly for paving.

 

            It is claimed that there more than two hundred varieties possessing valuable qualities.  Among the many varieties stands the famous yellow pine, the cheapest, the most abundant and best known of all the woods.  The Calcasieu yellow pine has found its way to the Northwest, South America, Europe, and large quantities are shipped to Mexico, and its superiority is admitted by all.  Next to the yellow pine is our cypress, which is used now principally for shingles and cistern building.  The curly pine of the section, with one variety of cypress, makes the finest finishing material for inside work. 

 

            When we come to consider the number of valuable timbers which can be handled so cheaply in the South, it is not to be wondered at, the extent to which the industry has been developed within the past few years.  The wonder is that it did not come sooner. The first shipment of yellow pine to the Chicago market was considered coarse and was not desirable.  The Northern lumbermen, however, recognizing its value, began about ten years ago to invest in yellow pine lands, since which time they have obtained about ten million acres form the government and perhaps as much more from private parties.  In some instances the investments have been made for speculative purposes; in others it has been developed and has added largely to the wealth of the South.

 

            Here in Calcasieu the industry has so developed that we now produce more lumber than the entire State did about ten years ago, and we are sadly in need of the opening of Calcasieu Pass, that our mills may be enabled to fill the orders for millions of feet that are wanted annually in South America.

 

            Mr. A.G. Van Shack, editor of the Mississippi Valley Lumberman, published at Minneapolis, Minn., after three weeks tour through the lumber regions of the South, went home and wrote as follows of what he had seen:

 

The South presents better opportunities for making money in the lumber lines than any other section.  I have just returned from a three weeks’ trip through the principal lumber regions and am greatly surprised at the rapid improvements that have taken place the last three years.  The cotton crop brings to Southerners in a large amount of money, as the bulk is exported.  The money is being spent on improvements and new buildings are to be seen in process of erection on every hand.  The consumption of lumber there is very large, but the export trade is greater then few have any idea of.  We made a thorough examination of the timber lands and the management and workings of the saw mills at all the leading points.  The Southern mill men have a better market for their common lumber than the Northern mills and make a larger profit on it.  At the same time, however the Southerners do not get as high a figure for their good lumber as we do.  After we get out of good lumber the situation will change, and the Southern mills will have a chance to sell their good lumber to better advantage.  The common lumber will not bring as much profit as now.  Northern logs that cost four dollars in the tree do not produce as much as Southern logs that cost fifty cents per one thousand feet more at the mill than it does in the North.  Northern lumbermen would be fools to invest in pine lands in the North at four dollars an acre when they can buy land that is as good in the South for one-tenth the price.  Southern lumber cuts out two and one-half per cent below merchantable, while Northern logs cut seven to ten per cent.

 

Let me show you the difference between the Southern and the Northern prices at mill.  Three inch joist, sixteen feet in length, are sold in lots of 500,000 to 1,000,000 feet for export to load in vessels at $10 at the mill.  The same retails here at $12.50, or at $9 net at the mills in Michigan.  Common inch sells at $8 to $10, while the same only brings $7.50 at Manistee.

 

The Southern lumbermen have all the advantages of the Northern lumbermen.  They can profit by the rapid development of the country by railroads, which enable them to market their product very rapidly.  They have a demand for it which the Michigan men did not have in the early days.  In the way of machinery, they have the advantage of the great improvements made during the past fifty years.  More money will be made in lumber in the  South than there ever was in the North, there being about double the amount of timber that there was in the States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota fifty years ago.  It does not cost more to handle logs in the South.  White men and Negroes work side by side.  A strong point in favor of the Southern mills is that they can cut more lumber in the same space of time with their circular saws, and cut it as good as any mill in the North.  For instance, they will cut 60,000 feet a day of eleven hours with a single circular, while we can not cut 45,000 to 50,000 in ten hours.  The South is the coming lumber country.

 

           

            With all these advantages of climate, resources of so many kinds, from a toothsome fig and a luscious orange to a pine log and the Chinaman’s favorite dish (rice), it would seem that Calcasieu parish is the land of the blest.  So enraptured became the editor of the Lake Charles Echo that he turned his harp one beautiful September day, in the year of grace 1888, and throwing himself back on an inverted nail keg, which he dubbed his editorial chair, he sung as follows to an

 

EVENING ON THE CALCASIEU

 

The day is done;

The setting sun,

Growing red, sinks out of view;

The lowing herds

And twitt’ring birds -

I hear them on the Calcasieu.

 

The old saw mill

As death is still,

Save sundry hissings now and then;

‘Neath the sky blue

Gathers the dew,

Glittering in the sunlight sheen.

 

The Calcasieu

Reflects the blue

And beauteous sky that bows above,

And from afar

A little star,

Reflected, seems to speak of love.

 

What is that? Hush!

I hear a slush!

I look; I see a little boat;

A maiden fair,

 With golden hair,

Sweetly, softly sings afloat!

 

She glides along;

I hear her song,

It dies away upon the river;

Soft, rippling waves

Behind she leaves,

That make the shadows dance and quiver!

 

‘Neath starry beam,

On down the stream,

 The lovely maiden fades away;

The zephyrs sigh

For her gone by; -

I bid farewell her gentle lay.  

 

‘Tis calm once more;

The days of yore

Crowd past me with their wondrous store;

And, ere we knew,

I wonder who

Dwelt on this beauteous Calcasieu?

 

Perhaps this mound

Upon the ground

Was built by some old chieftain who,

With his Red Men

Make his bed then

Upon the banks of Calcasieu!

 

Those Indian men

No doubt have been

 Often on our river’s sheen -

The rough canoe

And arrow true

Borne on our lovely Calcasieu.

 

But what, unseen,

The mirrored sheen,

Breaks into myriad ripples, bright?

The zephyrs stir,

I think of her,

Who passed away into the night!

 

The pine’s weird voice,

That low, sweet noise,

It makes me sad, yet I rejoice!

The wild winds swell

And break the spell -

I rise to go; sweet scene, farewell!

 

 

            Railroads. - Calcasieu, until the building of the Louisiana Western Railroad, now a link in the Southern Pacific system, was without railroads, and was dependent entirely on water transportation.  But the railroad has given it an importance abroad that it did not before possess.  The completion of the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railway now being constructed from Lake Charles north to Alexandria, where it will make most advantageous northern connection, will give Calcasieu parish railroad facilities not excelled by any parish in the State.  The road is already graded to Alexandria, and track-laying has commenced. Thus, it will be seen, it is only a question of a short time when the products of Kansas and the great Northwest will find their way to the markets of the world through this deep-water port.  For when the improvements are made already ordered by the Congress of the United States of deepening Calcasieu Pass, then Lake Charles becomes one of the safest and most important seaports on the Gulf of Mexico.

 

            Mr. J. B. Watkins, of what is known as the Watkins Syndicate, is doing a great thing for this country in building this new railroad.  The American says very truly of it and the great benefit it will be to this section:

 

The Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railway, now being built from this city in a northerly direction, is progressing as rapidly as could be expected.  The winter has been very favorable for railroad building, and the contractors, Messrs. Kennedy and Stone, have made excellent headway. The building of this road will do more for this section of country than anything else.  Already the country along the line is fast being settled by the thrifty Northern and Western farmers, who know that with the completion of this North and South road this will be one of the most inviting sections of the  country in the South for the fruit grower.   We are informed by a reliable gentlemen that the lands along the line and near it are being taken up very fast, all seeing the great future of this country in fruits.  This gentleman says there are excellent rice lands and fruit lands along the line for some distance, but his opinion is they will not last long, as they mean money to every one who owns them.

 

            Mr. John Speer, writing to the Daily Globe, Council Bluff, Iowa, thus expresses his opinion of the Calcasieu Pass as a deep water seaport and as a terminal point for a railroad from the Northwestern States:

 

Two railroads are already projected between Kansas City and that point, and one of them, the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf road, is already constructed for about sixty miles. The route from Kansas City passes over an almost level country, with an average decline of about one foot to the mile.  On this route is the best forest of timber for two hundred and fifty miles to be found in the United States.  Much of the land is subject to preemption and settlement. The timber consists largely of the long leaf pine, so marked in its superiority that it is known at Galveston and New Orleans as the Calcasieu pine, and is used for ornamental work, such as wainscoting, car finishing, etc.   The other varieties are cypress, ash, all kinds of oak, hickory, pecan, white gum, magnolia, etc.  Coal, iron and other mineral abound.  In fact it is rich in all that will go to build up a country and sustain railroads.  The land is suitable for corn, cotton, rice, oats, potatoes, apples, peaches, pears, plums, and everywhere small fruits.  The advantages of this route are six hundred miles less railroad haul through an almost level country, avoiding the resistance of nature in crossing the divides of the continent, including the Allegheny and Cumberland Mountains.  To this may be added the most important factor, competition between marts of business on the gulf and the Atlantic.

 

            The new negotiations now pending in the congress of all American nations are destined to afford opportunities for trade unparalleled in the history of the country.  Blaine, Carlisle and other statesmen fully appreciate it.  These States are in the direct line of it and have but to seize the opportunity to secure it.  The farmers of Iowa do not want to know how to raise more corn and wheat, but how to get rid of them, as of other productions.  The saving of the cost of transportation, as well as the advantages of competition, is the remedy.

 

            The Sulphur Mine. - Sulphur and petroleum have been found in Calcasieu, some twelve miles from Lake Charles.  Soon after the close of the war a company was formed, who commenced boring in search of oil, where for years it had appeared at the surface.  Petroleum has never been found in paying quantities, but sulphur was discovered, and in sufficiently large quantities to pay for working.

 

            The official report of the boring:  Soil, two feet; solid clay, intercepted with two strata of quicksand twenty-two and fifteen feet thick, one hundred and sixty three feet; quicksand, one hundred and seventy-nine feet; crumbling marl, two and one half feet; calcareous sand, 30 ½ feet; calcareous marl with pebbles, 4 feet; hard, compact, calcareous stem, 5 feet; pure, white, saccharoid, calcareous substance, 42 feet; sulphur (77 per cent pure sulphur), 112 feet; total, 540 feet and gypsum, 700 feet, entire total 1240 feet.

 

            The writer, in company with Capt. Bryan, of Lake Charles, visited the sulphur mine last winter, but learned little beyond what he could see for himself, as the superintendent seemed a little reticent as to the intentions of the company.  However, he seems to be making extensive preparations for something - probably for working the mines.

 

            Churches and Schools. - The Baptists were the pioneers of religion in Calcasieu.  They established their first church on the Calcasieu River in the midst of the earliest settlement.  It was called Antioch church, and some years after it was removed to the Big Woods, about ten miles from the original site.  It is still used as a church, and still bears the name of Antioch.  Since its removal to Big Woods, a number of the members withdrew and formed a church, in the immediate vicinity, of the Freewill Baptist or Hardshell persuasion. 

 

            Next after the Baptists came the Methodists. Their first church was called Ryan’s Chapel, and was located about eight miles from where Lake Charles now stands, on the West Fork of the Calcasieu River.  After Lake Charles was laid out as a town, other denominations organized churches.  The first church in the town was a Methodist, and for some time its building was used both as church and school house.  Then came the Catholics, the German Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodist Episcopal and Congregationalists in the order named.  The churches of Lake Charles are supplied with spiritual advisors at present as follows:  The Baptist, Rev. G. B. Rogers, pastor; Methodist Episcopal South, Rev. T. J. Upton, pastor; First Presbyterian, Rev. George Frazer, D. D., supply; Methodist Episcopal, Rev. C. A. King, pastor; Catholic church, Rev. Father Fallon, rector; Lutheran, Rev. S. Hoernicke, pastor; First Congregationalist, Rev. Henry L. Hubbell, pastor; Episcopalian, no rector at present; the last one was Rev. E. J. Hammond.  Churches of the different denominations have edifices throughout the parish.  Most of the villages have one or more church organizations.

 

            The first school in the parish was taught at the house of the old pioneer, Jacob Ryan, who hired a man named Thomas Rigneaden [Rigmaiden] to teach his children and those of his sons-in-law, Moss and Vincent.  The first school house was built on Bayou Dend [D'Inde], six or eight miles from Lake Charles.  The next school house in the parish was perhaps at Lake Charles, after it was laid out as a town.  The parish now has a good system of public schools, and in Lake Charles an excellent graded school, second to none in the country. The editor of the American, in a recent issue of this paper, thus describes a visit to the different educational institutions of Lake Charles:

 

First we visit the public school.  We found the fine building, which has been recently erected by the school board, in first-class order.  It is an imposing structure, 42 x 78 feet, two stories high, containing eight school rooms 20 x 30 feet each, with wide corridors, cloak room, etc.   Prof. O. S. Dolby, B.S., is the efficient principal, and has charge of the highest grade.  He is an experienced teacher.  Born in Ohio, reared in Michigan, graduated from Hillsdale College, Michigan, in 1882.  He has taught continuously since then in Michigan and Louisiana.  Miss M. J. Crossmun, B.S., a graduate of Ames’ Scientific and Mechanical College, in Iowa, and a native of Virginia, has charge of the second department.  She is also an experienced and accomplished teacher, having taught in Iowa, Virginia and Louisiana.  The third department is under the temporary charge of Mr. Vincent, who will teach until a permanent teacher is secured. The fourth department is presided over by Miss M. A. Jenkins, who is a native Louisianaian and a graduate of the Girls’ High School, of New Orleans.  She has taught the last three years, with great success and acceptability, the school in Westlake, and needs no recommendation to the people of Lake Charles.  The primary department is under the care of Miss Louise Leveque, a recent graduate of the St. Charles Academy, of Lake Charles.  Although this is Miss Leveque’s first experience as a teacher, she is thoroughly qualified for her work and is giving splendid satisfaction.  She has her little boys and girls under thorough training and is popular with them. There are enrolled and in attendance in the various departments of the public school two hundred and three students, and the probability is that the number will be largely increased in the next few months.

 

Next in our route, we visited the Lake Charles College.  This institution, which is destined to be the leading college of the State west of the Mississippi, is domiciled in a beautiful and commodious building in the southeast part of the city.  The main building is 55 x 85 feet, three-stories, 16, 14 and 12 feet high, respectively, and contains fourteen rooms and capacious corridors.  The addition, which is to be built in the near future, is to be 40 x 60 feet, two stories high. This imposing structure is situated in the center of a large campus, which is being graded, fenced and fronted with a splendid sidewalk.  In the southwest corner of the campus, Mr. Frank Siling, builder, is just completing for the college a splendid cottage for boarding purposes.  The main building is 72 x 40, three stories high, and the L is 20 x 32, two stories high, and contains twenty-seven rooms.  It is a marvel of beauty and convenience, and reflects credit upon both architect and builder.

 

            Lake Charles College was first opened for students October 1, 1890, with an efficient faculty of five, but only three of them as yet have arrived on the ground, but will come on later.  There are three departments - academic, preparatory and collegiate - but there are no students in the collegiate departments this term.  Rev. Henry L. Hubbell, D. D., is the efficient president.  He is a native of Connecticut, and has resided for several years in Amherst, Mass., as pastor of the Congregationalist church.  He is a graduate of Yale College.  Rev. A. R. Jones, A. M., a graduate of Amherst College of the class of 1880, is professor in the college.  Mrs. C. W. Little, a graduate of Fox Lake Seminary, Iowa, is professor of music.

 

            The college has enrolled thirty-nine this first month, and this number will be largely increased when the cottage is opened for boarders, as it will be in the near future.  The faculty will be increased as rapidly as required, and the curriculum and instruction will be equal to the best colleges in the nation.  The institution gives a fine opportunity to Northern parents to come and spend the winter in a genial climate, and at the same time send their children to a first-class college while they are still under the care of their parents.

 

            The St. Charles Academy, under the supervision and instruction of the Sisters Marianites of the Holy Cross, has been in operation eight years.  It is a chartered academy and gives diplomas to its graduates.  It has literature, art and music in its course of study.  The discipline is good, although corporal punishment is never resorted to.  It has seven teachers and sixty girls and thirty-seven boys in attendance. 

 

            The Glendale Institute has been running six years in Lake Charles, under the efficient management of Miss Ella R. Usher, a native of Baton Rouge and a graduate of the schools of that city.  She has one assistant, and teaches English and French.  There are thirty-six in attendance at this institution.

 

            Miss Mollie Burt claims the honor of having the oldest school in the city. It is needless for us to speak in high terms of her as a teacher, for her work speaks for itself.  She is a graduate of the New Orleans Girls’ High School, and has taught continuously in Lake Charles for a number of years.  She has all the students she can take care of properly.  The present number is twenty-five, but as soon as she secures an assistant a number of others will attend.

 

            Rev. S. Hoernicke is conducting a school in German and English, with good success.  He is a native of Ohio, and a graduate of a college in Springfield, Ill.  His school numbers thirty-six, and is increasing.  Besides these schools, which are for whites, there are also several schools for colored children conducted in our city. 

 

            The correspondent of the American Wool, Cotton and Financial Reporter, Boston, Massachusetts, the great educational center of the United States, the very Athens of America, had this to say of the college at Lake Charles: 

 

The Lake Charles College was established by the Congregationalists, of the New England States principally, a number of the wealthier citizens here aiding in the enterprise.  They have, in a well situated portion of the city, sixteen acres of ground and a magnificent building erected thereon.  This college opened October 1, with Rev. H. L. Hubbell, D. D., of Amherst, Massachusetts, as president, and Rev. A. R. Jones, a graduate of Amherst College, as principal of the preparatory and academical departments.  We were present last Sunday night in the Baptist church in this city and listened to an able sermon from Dr. Hubbell, who preached by invitation of the pastor, the Rev. G. B. Rogers, and at the close of the sermon Mr. Rogers also introduced Prof. Jones, and made a few excellent remarks, encouraging his congregation to stand by and help, by word, deed and patronage, these Christian gentleman in establishing and maintaining this college.  Mr. Rogers is a Southern man, and this shows the feeling that exists between the Northern and the Southern people here, and shows that the efforts made here by the Northern people are appreciated.  This is thought to be a far-reaching movement of the part of the Christian people of the East.  There are a great many people from the North here already, but not a great many from the New England States.  The most of them settle in the prairie and along the line of the new railroad.  We will endeavor to see a number of the Northern people who have resided here a year or more and relate in our next article some of their experiences.

 

            The colored people have a number of schools and churches in the parish, and a very excellent graded school in Lake Charles.  They are manifesting considerable interest in educational matters. 

 

            Doctors and Lawyers. - Not much is known of the early physicians of Calcasieu; the old pioneers in the healing art, who have passed away, and the present practitioners are mostly noticed in the biographical department of this volume.  Dr. J. B. Saunders is one of the first physicians remembered in the parish.  He was originally from Virginia, but came here from North Louisiana.  Next, Dr. Hardy came over from Opelousas, remained a few years and returned whence he came.  Dr. Kirkman was also an early physician here, but died a few years ago.  His family still resides here.  He was a prominent man and a popular physician.  Dr. Gray came here from the north part of the State and practiced here until his death in May, 1881.  Few names in Louisiana are more widely known or more gratefully remembered than that of Dr. Gray.  He was a man of generous impulses, of wide benevolence, and a heart overflowing with sympathy for the woes of others.  When he died hundreds wept tears of sympathy for his bereaved family.  There are a number of able and experienced physicians in the parish and in Lake Charles, for sketches of whom the reader is referred to Part II of this work.

 

            The first lawyer of the parish was Samuel L. Kirby.  He came here from Claiborne parish, but was originally from the Green Mountains of Vermont.  He was a man of considerable legal prominence, and for some time held the practice of Calcasieu alone.  A daughter now keeps the Hotel Howard.  The next lawyer was a Mr. Parsons, and the next a Mr. Ewing.  These two gentlemen were both killed near the public square by a man named LeBlue, a rather desperate character, it is said, and who finally met his own death with his boots on.  A lawyer named Sorwell was the next practitioner at the Calcasieu bar.  He and his wife were drowned at Calcasieu Pass many years ago.

 

            Judge Kearney was a prominent member of the bar of Calcasieu, and was District Attorney at the time of his decease a short time since.  He was succeeded as District Attorney by Mr. Joseph C. Gibbs, whose accidental death a few months ago, while out hunting, cast a gloom over the whole country.  The lawyers of the present bar are Hon. Geo. H. Wells, Hon. G. A. Fournet, Col. A. R. Mitchell, D. B. Gorham, W. F. Schwing, R. Odom, R. P. O’Brien, A. Pujo, E. D. Miller and John McNeese.

 

            The parish is divided into eight jury wards, with a representative from each ward, who constitute the municipal government of the parish.  The present police jurors are - for the first ward, Emile Buller; for second ward, D. D. Andrus; for third ward, Adolph Meyer and J. W. Rosteet; for fourth ward, Charles Miller; for fifth ward, Reese Perkins; for sixth ward, T. J. Carroll; for seventh ward, Levi A. Miller; for eighth ward, Ivan A. Perkins.   Adolph Meyer is president of the board; Dosite Vincent, clerk, and W. L. Hutchins, treasurer.  Secretary of the parish School Board is John McNeese; Thomas Kleinpeter is parish surveyor; Dr. A. J. Perkins, coroner; C. M. Richard, assessor; R. J. O’Brien, district attorney; D. J. Reed, Jr., sheriff; Thad Mayo, clerk of court; Hon. S. D. Reed , judge of District Court; Hon. S. O. Shattuck, member of Legislature.  The assessed valuation of property for the parish since and including 1885 is as follows:  for 1885, $3,018,570; for 1886, $3,191,125; for 1887, $3,476,003; for 1888, $4,060,735; for 1889, $4,300,330; for 1890, $5,738,550, an increase, it will be observed, from 1889 to 1890 of considerably over a million dollars.

 

            Lake Charles Settled. - Lake Charles was settled - it was never regularly surveyed and laid out as a town - about 1852.  It was incorporated about 1857, under the name of Charlestown, for one of the first settlers of the place named Charles Sallier.  It then had a population of from three to five hundred souls, and about the same time it became the parish seat.  In 1867 it was incorporated under the name of Lake Charles, and still retaining the name of the old pioneer, Charles Sallier.  The following is the act of incorporation:

 

Section I.     Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in General Assembly convened.  That the inhabitants of the town of Lake Charles in the parish of Calcasieu, and the same are hereby made a body corporate and politic by the name of the Town Council of Lake Charles, and as such can sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, shall possess the right to establish a common seal, and the same to annul, alter or change at pleasure.

 

Section 2.     Be it further enacted, etc.  That the limits of said town of Lake Charles shall be laid out in the following manner, to-wit:  Beginning north on the east bank of Lake Charles, ten acres above the residence of Joseph L. Bilbo, thence southward along the bank of said lake to and including the lands of Michael Pithon; thence eastward on a line parallel with the line of lands of W. Hutchings, and so as to include the residence of J. V. Moss, to the line which intersects the lands of J. V. Fouchey and W. Hutchins thence on a parallel line with said intersection line of J. V. Fouchey and W. Hutchings as for [far] north as to intersect and east and west line from the place of beginning and comprising all property therein situated.

 

Section 3.    Be it further enacted, etc.  That the municipality of said town of Lake Charles shall consist of a mayor and five aldermen, three of whom, together with the mayor, shall constitute a quorum to transact business.  No person shall be eligible to the office of mayor or aldermen who does not reside within the limits of said corporation and is above the age of twenty-one years; the said mayor and aldermen shall be chosen by the qualified voters hereinafter provided for in this act; said mayor and aldermen to be elected on the first Monday in June each and every year.

 

The remaining sections up to ten define the duties of the different offices of the town, etc.  
The act is signed by -
J. H. Hardy, Secretary of State.

Duncan S. Cage, Speaker House of Representatives. 

Albert Voorhies, Lieut. Governor and President of the Senate.

J. Madison Wells, Governor of the State of Louisiana.

Approved March 16, 1867.  

A true copy. 

 

            A writer thus speaks of the incorporation of Lake Charles;  “Up to ten years since its population had not reached more then eight hundred.  About that time the Louisiana Western Railroad was constructed, and communication being established with the cities of Texas on the west and New Orleans on the east, the citizens were no longer dependent upon schooners coming up the Calcasieu River, and new people came in, new enterprises were started, the town began to grow, and the limits were found too small.  Under a general law of the State the corporate limits were enlarged, and the little stopping place of cattlemen bloomed into the beautiful town we now have, with a summer population of three thousand six hundred, at least four thousand winter residents, containing seven hotels, two banks, an ice factory, two machine shops, one large opera house, nine very large saw-mills, three shingle mills, around it.”

 

            Following is the municipal government:  Hon. A. L. Reid, mayor; E. D. Miller, secretary; W. A. Knapp, treasurer; C. B. Richard, collector; and councilmen: J. C. Munday, E. J. Lyons, Sol Bloch, Robert King and J. T. Brooks.

 

            A Go-ahead Town. - That Lake Charles is a live, go-ahead town, is vouched for by that able advocate of its advantages and capabilities, the American, as follows:

 

Lake Charles is situated on the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, two hundred and seventeen miles west of New Orleans, one hundred and sixty miles east of Houston, Texas, and at the terminus of the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railroad, soon to be completed.  The city is situated upon the eastern bank of a beautiful lake.  Upon the north an immense virgin forest of long leaf yellow pine extends hundreds of miles.  On the south the great coast prairie stretches to the gulf, and eastward for more than one hundred and thirty miles, an expanse of surpassing grandeur, with soil of marvelous fertility and a climate the most genial upon this continent. Hon. W. H. Harris, Commissioner of Immigration for Louisiana, says of the country about the town: “The climate of the prairie is admirable - breezy and cool in summer, mild in winter, and healthy at all times.  Altogether this region may be regarded as the loveliest in Louisiana.”  With such reasonable care as intelligent people exercise in all countries, this climate has been found to be generally healthy and very beneficial to pulmonary, bronchial and rheumatic troubles.  Every winter people come to Lake Charles as a health resort.  Lake Charles is the largest town in Southwestern Louisiana.  Previous to the war it was only a village of one or two stores, a rude form of court house and a log jail.  New stores were added after the war, and as the superior merits of the Calcasieu timber became known, it began to assume importance as a business center, and to-day has a population somewhere between four and five thousand souls.  They are energetic, live people, and are engaged in milling, merchandising and all other pursuits that man follows for a livelihood.  Northern capital in the last few years has found out that here is a good place to invest its surplus capital and Lake Charles numbers among her staunchest citizens to-day Northern men who were attracted here by the superior location and soil for which this parish is noted. Lake Charles has ten large saw mills, three shingle mills, an ice factory, two shipyards and about fifty miles of narrow gauge tram road that is used in carrying logs to the lake and river.  All lines of merchandise are represented here.

 

            Lake Charles can boast among her business men, men of money and enterprise, who have confidence in her future, and having confidence, they are willing to risk their money.  Prof. S. A. Knapp is the local agent and general of the Southern Real Estate, Loan and Guarantee Company.  The company commands unlimited capital, and is composed of men both here and in the Northern office who are thoroughly acquainted with their business, and parties who desire either to buy or sell should not fail to call on them.  They buy and sell real estate in large quantities.  To sell blocks to actual settlers is their special hobby, as they are determined to settle up Calcasieu parish and make it the small farmers’ paradise.  This company is composed of leading capitalists of England, and is cooperative in its action.  The president is a prominent member of parliament.

 

            The Watkins Banking Company, another large moneyed institution of this country, has an office here, and is a leader in settling up this parish with the hardy yeomanry from the Northwestern States.  The company owns large bodies of land in this and adjoining parishes, besides which they are building a railroad to Kansas City.  The Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railway, now being built from this city in a northerly direction, is progressing as rapidly as could be expected.  The winter has been very favorable for railroad building, and the contractors, Messrs. Kennedy & Stone have made excellent headway.  The building of this road will do more for this section of the country than anything else.  Already the country along the line is fast being settled up by the thrifty Northern and Western farmers, who know that with the completion of this north and south road this will be one of the most inviting sections of country in the South for the fruit growers.  We are informed by a reliable gentleman that the lands along the line and near it are being taken up very fast, as all are seeing the great future of this country in fruits.  This gentleman says there are excellent rice lands and fruit lands along the line for some distance, but his opinion is that they will not last long, as they mean money to every one who owns them.  This company has lately laid off, inside the corporate limits of the city, two hundred and sixty acres of land in addition, and has graded fifteen miles of streets.

 

            Lake Charles Adapted to Manufactories. - Lake Charles has the best of facilities for becoming a manufacturing town.  It has one trunk line railroad, and will soon have another. These will cause local roads to be built to other points.  Even now there is one contemplated from the Sulphur Mine to tap the Southern Pacific some dozen miles or so west of the mine.  Lake Charles has already pretty good water transportation, and when Calcasieu Pass is improved and deepened as designed, it will have the advantages of both railroad and water transportation.  These combined advantages must result in great benefit and wealth to the town if her people continue to exert themselves as they are now doing, and “keep the ark moving.”  With her vast lumber interests, now aggregating millions of dollars annually, and to which should be added rice mills, sugar refineries, cotton gins and presses, oil mills and other factories that will necessarily follow, then will the hum of industry echo and reecho across your beautiful little lake.   When you hear of a firm or company who are desirous of starting a manufacturing enterprise in  your town, don’t put your heads together and figure on how much you can squeeze out of them for a location for their establishment, but donate five, ten, or twenty acres if that will secure it.  If a manufacturing enterprise is established in the town, employing a hundred hands, with a monthly pay roll of say $5000, who will be more benefited than the business men of Lake Charles?  Why, the matter is so plain that “even a fool should not err therein.”  The editor of the American strikes the key note to the situation when he says:

 

Facts and figures continue to show and prove what we have before repeated, that right in the South, in the midst of the cotton fields, is the place for successful cotton manufacturing.  Experience has proven this beyond question.  There is not a factory in the South, where it is properly managed, but what is paying a good percent on the investment.  Ex-Governor Lowry, of Mississippi, makes the statement that the product of Mississippi mills at Wesson is sold in Boston in competition with goods of all grades manufactured within forty miles of Boston.  It must be remembered, too, that these mills are so situated that they have but one line of shipment and have no chance of competition in freights. This experience is in line with that of other mills in Georgia and Alabama.  With such experience there is no wonder that factories in the North are hunting up good situations in the South where they can move their mills.

 

            When we read that a manufacturing establishment up North, employing, perhaps, one thousand hands, desires to move South, we conclude at once that the principal owners of the factory have investigated the matter, and the information obtained led to this conclusion.  The time is now upon us when the cotton must be manufactured in or near the great cotton region, if done for profit.  Already the foothold of Southern mills is so firm that the New England mills can not compete with them.  The Southern mills have no long stretches of freight to meet; they have a climate which favors the work, making it a less cost for living and a less cost for manufacturing.  This is shown in the per cent of profits which is told annually to the world, and which reveals the fact that the Southern mills have largely the advantage over those of the North. 

 

            The business men of manufacturing interests up North are alive to the times, and are trying to keep pace with the changes that are being made.  He sees that he can now make favorable terms with some live young Southern city by getting a bonus to remove his mill, and he seizes the opportunity, recognizing the fact that the day may not be far distant when such opportunities will not come.

 

            The moving of mills South and the building of new ones and enlarging others has created a demand for this kind of machinery, and this will lead to the moving of iron mills South, as there will doubtless be advantages held by such mills because of their nearness to the cotton mills.  There must be mills for the manufacturing of this machinery, right near the Southern cotton mills, where it is wanted.  The advantage that one such mill will have over those far distant will be so great that other factories will follow or new ones be built.   Just so with the great machine works that are manufacturing machinery for the saw-mills that have so largely increased in the South during the last few years.  It is evident these machine shops must come nearer the mills.  Time in this fast age has much to do with these matters, as well as the long haul of freights.  We noticed the arrival in our city on the 17^th of April of the machinery for the new ice factory in this city.  This machinery was shipped on February 26 from New York, and shows the result of long distance.  There is to-day not a more inviting field in the South for factories than in Lake Charles. 

 

            The following timely hints are from the same source as quoted above, and are worthy of earnest consideration:  We have mentioned the subject of a rice mill in a former issue, but we look upon it as so important that we again call attention to this subject.  We believe there is no other city in the United States where a rice mill, on a large scale, would pay as well as in the city of Lake Charles.

 

            In the first place it could be built cheaper here than in almost any other place.  We have the finest building material in the world, cheaper than in almost any other place.  Our lumber is of the best and cheapest.  Our brick will bear comparison with any brick on the continent, and can be furnished on the ground in any quantity as cheap as any place.  The cost of operating a mill will be cheaper than in most other places, by reason of the cheapness of fuel.  Our saw-mill men will furnish fuel free to any factory or mill that will operate here.

 

            Then, in the next place, rough rice can be delivered here cheaper than in any other city where large rice mills are now in operation.  It is estimated that Calcasieu parish will produce at least four hundred thousand barrels of rough rice this year, and the industry is but fairly begun.  It can be delivered here for about eighty-five cents per barrel less than it can in New Orleans.  Then the milled product can be shipped from here to the consumer as cheap or cheaper than from any other rice mills in the South.  When the K. C., W. & G. Railroad reached Alexandria, which it will undoubtedly do this fall, rice can be shipped from here direct to St. Louis and nearly direct to Kansas City. Then, in the next place, the bran and the polish would find a ready market at the mill to the farmers and stock men.  Taking all these things into consideration, it looks to us as if a rice mill on a large scale - say of the capacity of five hundred barrels per day - would pay enormous profits at once.  Where is the man with capital who is willing to engage in this enterprise?  We feel sure that our citizens are ready to encourage this enterprise heartily, for it will be admitted by all that while a mill would be greatly profitable to its owners, it would at the same time be valuable to the city and the country.  It would give us an increase of population and wealth. It would give us a market for our rough rice at home.  It would give us cheap feed.  It would add to our resources in many ways, and benefit us for all time to come.  Let us have a rice mill.

 

            Lumber Mills. - These are by far the most valuable industry about Lake Charles.  Nothing is attracting more attention in the South than the famous pine lumber. Capitalists from the North, and even from England, are seeking pine lands, and in many places are endeavoring to obtain interest in the large lumber mills already established, or erecting new mills.  No place is more favorably adapted to the lumber business than Lake Charles; no place so well adapted to the handling of logs.  The streams north of the town are so well distributed through the Calcasieu pine region that it makes it an easy and cheap way to place the logs in floating water.  These streams come together just north of the town, and it is this that gives it an advantage over most places in the South, as an unlimited number of cheap logs can be obtained the entire year.  To give some idea of the lumber business of Lake Charles, it is only necessary to give a brief synopsis of the mills and their business.

 

            M. T. Jones & Co.’s mill is situated on the east bank of the lake, just south of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and has a capacity of from seventy-five thousand to ninety thousand feet of lumber daily.  The sizer and planer have a capacity of from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand feet daily.  The mill has cut as high as one hundred and six thousand feet in one day.

 

            The Bradley-Ramsey Lumber Company is located on the Calcasieu River, about a mile north of the Southern Pacific depot.  The first mill established here was in 1853, by Captain D. J. Goos.   It was a small affair then, but with enterprise and perseverance, improvements were made and new machinery was added until a number of lumber men, with confidence in the future of the Calcasieu pine, bought one hundred and fifty thousand acres of pine lands, and shortly after purchased the Goos mill and organized the Calcasieu Lumber Company.  In 1887 the present Bradley-Ramsey Company was organized.  Their mill is well nigh perfect, and has a capacity of from sixty thousand to seventy-five thousand feet daily.  In connection is a planer and a dry house.

 

            Perkins & Miller’s mill is located on the west side of the lake and was established in 1870.  It has been greatly improved in all these years, and now has a capacity of from sixty to seventy thousand feet daily.  Some four hundred yards from the mill is the planer, which has a capacity of nearly fifty thousand feet daily.  One of the planers will take a piece of lumber 6 x 18 inches and dress the four sides by passing once through the mill.

 

            A great deal of this machinery is new.  The mill has added in improvement in the last thirteen months about $13,000 and are still improving.  A contract made a few days ago, to place a 40,000-gallon tank fifty feet high, for the purpose of waterworks for the protection of the mills and lumber, has been completed.

 

            In the rear of the mill is a marshy place running back some distance.  Saw dust has been piled on this to a depth of perhaps eight or ten feet, and on this saw dust is a large lumber yard with a stock on hand of from three to four million feet.  It is claimed, and with good reasoning, that the dampness is taken up by the saw dust, and lumber may be piled and seasoned on this saw dust free from mould spots.  The lumber is shipped by schooner and rail to Mexico, Texas Colorado and Kansas. 

 

            The logs used in this mill are brought from the C. & V. R. R.   The firm of A. J. Perkins & Co. of Galveston, Texas, own a half interest in this road, and the firm of Perkins & Miller get one-half of the logs and Lock, Moore & Co. the other half.  The road puts into tide water over five hundred logs per day, which are towed by a tug boat to the booms at these mills.

 

            The Norris mill was established by Mr. W. B. Norris is 1866, at what is called Norris’ Point.  This is where the Calcasieu River runs into, or rather by the northwest corner of Lake Charles.  The mill when first established was small, but was kept steadily running until 1872, when the demand on Mr. Norris for lumber became so great he tore down the little mill and erected in its stead a large, double mill, running two circulars.  This mill was burned in 1873, and was rebuilt in the same year, from which time until January, 1888, it ran almost without interruption, except from an occasional repair or putting in new machinery, and during all this time Mr. Norris was seldom up with his orders, so great was the demand.

 

            In January, 1888, this mill burned, and almost before the ashes became cold, the debris was cleared away, and in less than six months’ time another large mill was erected; in this, however, was placed a band saw and a finishing circular saw, instead of a circular alone.  The band saw is supposed to cut about two-thirds that of a circular; the band saw and finishing circular together being about equal to the circular saw.

 

            Mr. Norris was the first man on this river to put in a planer, and the first and only one yet to put in a band saw.  He put in the planer in 1868, and has had them in constant use ever since.  In the new mill is entire new machinery of the latest improvements.  There are also two planers and a molder, a sticker and a resaw.  Just across the river is the Sturtevant dry kiln, just completed, with a capacity of one hundred thousand feet.

 

            Drew’s mill is the property of H. C. Drew, and is situated on the lake front in the lower part of the city.  Several years ago the mill was burned, but was, soon rebuilt.  The mill has a capacity of about thirty thousand feet per day.  The shipments are largely by water on schooners, of which Mr. Drew is the owner, to ports in Texas and Mexico.  There is no switch to it from the railroad, and all shipments by rail from this point are carried to Westlake, where the lumber is placed on cars.  He runs a planer, and also near by is a shingle mill, with a capacity of twenty-five thousand per day, and hoop and stave factory.

 

            The Mount Hope mill is the property of W. L. Hutchings, the parish treasurer, and is located on the Calcasieu River, within the corporate limits, in the northern part of the town.  It is a good mill, with a cutting capacity of about forty thousand feet per day, and has a planer in operation.  It has been almost entirely remodeled within the last twelve months.

 

            Besides these mentioned there are a number of others in and around Lake Charles and Westlake, and in the parish, most of which are in operation.    Among these the Hampton mill, the Walter & Greeves, Lock, Moore & Co., Burleson Brothers, the Hansen mill, Ryan & Geary, etc.  Some of these are only shingle mills, but most of them are lumber and some of them lumber and shingles.  It is probably no exaggeration to say that the mills of Lake Charles and immediate vicinity cut upon an average at least half a million feet of lumber daily, and shingles, well, “more than any man can number.”

 

            The Press. - The newspaper is an important factor in the development of any country.  It can do more for good, and even for evil, if it was to turn its great power in that direction, than any other one influence that can be exercised in a community.

 

            The first newspaper published in this parish was the Calcasieu Press, founded in June 1855, by Judge B. A. Martel and John A. Spence, of Opelousas.  Mr. Spence was editor and publisher.  It continued until about the close of the war and at its discontinuance was in its sixth volume, which shows that from its commencement to its suspension it had been issued but little more than half of the time.  Probably this was caused by the derangement of all business matters during the Civil War.

 

            The Lake Charles Echo is the oldest paper in the parish, and one of the ablest in this portion of the State.  It was established February 16, 1868, by Judge J. D.  Reed and Louis Leveque.  Both of its founders are now dead. The paper was not published regularly and only completed two volumes in three years.  After passing through some of the vicissitudes incident to country newspapers in country towns, and changing ownership a time or two, it was, in February, 1871, bought by Captain J. W. Bryan.  He improved it in many respects and soon put it on a firm basis.  He conducted it successfully until in March,1890, when he sold it to stock company, and it is still in successful operation, edited by W. F. Schwing.

 

            The New Orleans Picayune thus “boosted” Capt. Bryan at the time he sold the Echo: “Great credit and much is awarded him (J. W. Bryan) for the able manner in which he built it up and edited its columns.  Lake Charles was at that time but a hamlet, the parish seat of the poorest parish in the State, now ranking among the very first in wealth and population.”

 

            The American is a flourishing weekly paper of sixteen pages, well filled with news, miscellany and matters of interest to the parish.  November 12, 1890, it entered upon its sixth volume. It was established in New York City, but in 1887, was removed to Lake Charles, and commenced its publication in this city in September of that year.  It is devoted to the interests of Southwest Louisiana generally, and Lake Charles and Calcasieu parish particularly, and is a stanch supporter of the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railroad. It is published by the Lake Charles Publishing Company, and ably edited by Mr. Z. L. Everett, assisted by Rev. W. H. Kline, who attends to the gathering up of facts on the resources and development of the country.  But for the well filled columns of the American, the task of writing up Calcasieu parish for this work would have been a much greater labor than it has.   The business department is under the management of Mr. Marshall, and the affable and courteous Miss Della Neal attends to the clerical work of the office.  Once a month the American publishes forty thousand copies of its paper, devoted principally to the resources and advantages of this section, which are sent broadcast over the country, particularly through the Northwest; it also publishes a patent side for a number of country papers.

 

            The Lake Charles Commercial is midway in its tenth volume.  John McCormick is its editor and publisher, and C. M. McCormick is its general manager.  It is a live and enterprising paper of four pages, seven columns to a page, and strongly anti-lottery. 

 

            The Christian Visitor was established by Rev. G. B. Rogers, pastor of the Baptist Church, and conducted about a year and a half, when it was consolidated with the American.             

 

            Country Towns. - Jennings is the most important town in Calcasieu parish, outside of Lake Charles.  It is situated on the Southern Pacific Railroad, near the line between Calcasieu and Acadia parishes, and is a new town comparatively.  In 1880 it was rated at only twenty-five inhabitants. Now it has some four or five hundred.  Jennings stands in the midst of a fine shipping section, where rice is the principal crop, and the Reporter estimates that not less than four hundred car loads of that product alone was shipped from that point last year.  Many Northwestern people live around the town of Jennings - in fact, the community is principally  settled by those enterprising and pushing people, who have come here to enjoy the healthful climate and rich lands.  The place has a church or two, several stores, a post office, a newspaper, the Jennings Reporter, edited and published by Messrs. Cary & Son, now entered upon its third volume; a new and elegant school house, in which is taught for the usual term a graded school.  To sum up, it is a live, wide-awake and enterprising business town.

 

            Welsh is a flourishing town on the Southern Pacific Railroad, twenty-three miles east of Lake Charles, and containing at present about three hundred inhabitants, many of whom are Western people.  The situation of the town is all that could be desired, being half a mile from the Lacassine, a wooded stream flowing south to the gulf.  With the exception of the Lacassine it is surrounded by a vast expanse of prairie, reaching to the Mermentau River on the east, and to the long leaf pine of the Calcasieu River on the north and west.

 

            The town of Welsh, surveyed and platted in 1884, did not begin to build up rapidly until July 1887.  In April, 1887, the Messrs. Jasinsky and Reever, of Guthrie county, Iowa, and George D. Moore, Mitchelville, of same State, visited Welsh and being captivated with its splendid location and superior surroundings, purchased lands in and near town, and in July of the same year there was witnessed a veritable boom in the construction of several good business houses and residences.  The town certainly has a bright future before it, being in the midst of a splendid agricultural country.

 

            The following are the shipments from this place: 13,840 barrels rough rice, worth here $3.50 per barrel; 69,840 pounds of wool, worth 18 cents per pound; 954 tons of hay, worth here about $5.50 per ton; 1520 head beef cattle, worth about $17.90 per head.  Rice and hay are the principal farm products, though sugar cane, cotton, Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes, oats and corn are grown, and it is only a question of a few years when many of these products will be raised for export.  The Welsh Crescent, edited by H. Duggett, attends to advertising the interests of the town.

 

            About two hundred families of Western and Northern people have settled in and around Welsh from almost every State in the Union from Texas to New York.  The town was incorporated in April, 1888, and Hon. Henry Welsh elected the first mayor, an honor appropriately conferred, he having been founder of the town.  He is a gentleman known and respected throughout Southwest Louisiana, his hospitable home having been for many years the principal stopping place for travelers before the railroad was built. 

           
            Welsh can boast of its location, good houses, a number of energetic public-spirited business men and many worthy citizens.  There are at present three good hotels, six general stores, one restaurant, livery stable, lumber yard, drug store, market, barber shop, two physicians and two real estate agents.

 

            Vinton is situated upon the western border of Calcasieu parish some six miles east of Sabine River.  The traveler upon the Southern Pacific Railroad will note a charming belt of prairie, picturesque, deep soiled and rolling.  Here Messrs. Horrige, Eddy and Stevinson, of Benton county, Iowa, have located the pretty town of Vinton and nicely graded its broad streets. It has a position of commanding commercial importance, only six miles to the Sabine, navigable for three hundred miles, and with the bar at the mouth improved for the passage of ocean steamers, and nine miles southeasterly to tide water of Bayou Choupique, which flows into the Calcasieu River. North is a vast forest of yellow pine, which can best be penetrated by a railroad from Vinton.  C. P. Hampton has erected a large saw-mill at this place, and will build a railroad to his timber.  This town presents special attraction to Northern settlers.  Good lands can be purchased in the vicinity at from three to five dollars per acre.

 

            Sabine Station is located near the western boundary of the State.  It is a very pretty and pleasant location, with timber and prairie interspersed.  Why it has not a good school and church facilities, with all other necessary business houses, seems to be an unanswerable question.  Near by is a church house about thirty by forty feet, well ventilated and partially seated with very good, substantial, homespun benches.  Near half a mile east from the station, but on the railway line, is the neighborhood post-office, kept by M. Fairchilds, where is also kept a small stock of dry goods, groceries and many other needed articles.  The ancient village of Niblett’s Bluff, of thirty or more years ago, as a landing and business point, is now a wreck and ruin, the Southern Pacific Railroad and its station having taken away its business and its life.

 

            Sugartown, or the seventh ward, is about twenty-five miles square, bounded south by Barnes Creek and north by Vernon parish.  It is heavily timbered with long leaf pine, except on the creek bottoms, which are covered with a heavy growth of oak, beech, hickory, maple, magnolia and other hard wood, suitable for the manufacture of furniture, wagons, farm implements, etc.  Numerous creeks of pure, clear water, abounding in trout, cat, buffalo and other fresh water fish, run through this section and empty into the Calcasieu River, which runs south through the parish into the gulf.  On these creeks lumbering business is carried on.  The timber is cut, hauled to the banks and dumped into the water, and run into the river, thence to the mills at Lake Charles, where it is sawed into lumber and shipped to all parts of the country.  The soil is sandy loam, very easy to cultivate, and on the creek bottoms very fertile.  The pine lands are not so rich in vegetable mould, but are susceptible of high state of cultivation by a very little fertilizing.  The crops are corn, cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar cane, sorghum, peas, oats, Irish and sweet potatoes, all kinds of garden vegetables in perfection, and fruits of nearly every variety.  The country is very level, and the finest kind of grass grows all through the pine woods, on which cattle get very fat during the summer, and the winters are so short and mild that they go through with very little feed.  Sheep are more profitable to keep, from the fact that they get their living the year round in the woods with very little attention.  Hogs get fat nearly every fall in the bottoms on the beech and oak mast.  Lands for farming purposes can be bought at from $1.25 to $5 per acre.

 

            West Lake Charles is situated on the west bank of the lake.  It contains the Perkins & Miller mill, the store of A. J. Perkins, store of W. B. Norris, and saloon of H. Escubas.   It has a Baptist church, and a school of about thirty scholars.  There are several nice residences in the place, and quite a number of comfortable cottages.  Mr. Escubas is building a very handsome hotel of about twenty rooms, which will be completed in the course of three or four weeks, and he is also building a livery stable. From the upper porch of the hotel may be seen the Lake Charles College building, the Baptist church, the Convent, Opera House, and other buildings on the east side.  Mr. Escubas and Mr. Norris own each a square or two of land there, and there may be one or two others owning lots, but, with these exceptions, Mr. A. J. Perkins is the sole owner, and owns almost continuously for three miles. 

 

            Goosport is a small village just north of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Lake Charles.  It is situated on the Calcasieu River, and is the seat of the Bradley-Ramsey Saw Mill and Lumber Company, already noticed in this chapter.

 

            There are a number of other small villages in the parish, among which are Esterly, Iowa City, Crown Point, Lakeside, Edgerly, Sulphur City, Evangeline, Chloe, Lacassine, Rose Bluff, Calcasieu, Lake Arthur, China, Serpent, Killinger, Meadow, Barnes’ Luck, etc.  Some of these are merely post-offices, kept at the house of some farmer, others are post-office and store, and sometimes a school house.  Lake Arthur begins to consider itself a town, and started a newspaper last year (May 22, 1890), the Lake Arthur Herald, by P. M. Kokanour.

 

            The parish of Calcasieu has a number of most beautiful little lakes, the principal of which are Lake Calcasieu, Lake Arthur and Lake Charles.  Lake Calcasieu is about fifteen miles in length, and lies mostly in Calcasieu parish, extending to within five or six miles of the gulf.  Lake Arthur lies in the southeast part of the parish, while Lake Charles is at the parish capital, and gives name to the town, or the town to the lake, as the case may be. As the lake is the older of the two places, perhaps the town was named for the lake, and both were named for old Charles Sallier, the pioneer.

 

            Lake Charles is a beautiful little sheet of water, and has often been compared to Lake Geneva in Switzerland.  It is clear as crystal, and about three miles long and two miles wide.  The Calcasieu River runs through the lake, and by the course of the river it is fifty-five miles to the gulf, and the stream is said to be from forty to one hundred feet deep, except at the Pass, and to deepen it Congress has appropriated $75,000.  When this is accomplished the largest ocean steamer can ascend to Lake Charles.  There is nothing to prevent the town of Lake Charles from becoming, as already stated in these pages, a great business and manufacturing place, and also a fine winter resort.  The climate is fine in the winter season, and the lake presents a place for boat riding and for fishing at all seasons.

 

            Many Things of Many Kinds. - An enthusiast on the future of Lake Charles writes thus on the glory of the town’s worldly possessions:  "Lake Charles has nine large saw-mills, three large shingle mills, an ice factory, machine shop and foundry, four ship yards, a large brick and tile factory, cheap building material, a large number of stores of general merchandise, four drug stores, one fine hardware store, energetic merchants, several carpenter shops, one agricultural implement store, sash, door and blind factory, an artesian well, four newspapers, able lawyers, skilful physicians, excellent preachers, wise editors, commodious churches, fine schools, a handsome college building, an excellent public school building, a fine opera house, palatial residences, two banks, hustling real estate agents, wide-awake citizens, one railroad in operation - another building - several others contemplated, communication by water with the outside world, fine orange orchards, excellent vegetable gardens, rich farming lands around, cheap fuel, handsome women, fine looking men, and the prettiest sheet of water in the world.”  Nothing else?

           

            Additional to the above may be given her social, benevolent and charitable organizations, as follows:

                                               

Lake Charles Lodge, No. 165, F. and A. M., S. O. Shattuck, Master; W. M. Elliot, Senior Warden; R. J. Gunn, Junior Warden, and E. H.  Dees, Secretary. 

Peace Lodge, K. of P., J. E. LaBesse, C. C.; C. Bunker, K. of R. and S.; W. A. Knapp, G. Reporter.  

Reliance Lodge, No. 3278, K. of H., W. A. Knapp, Dictator, and J. A. Reed, Reporter.  

Hope Council, No.1112, A. L. of H., M. D. Kearney, Commander, and L. Hirsch, Secretary.  

Young Men’s Christian Association, Prof. W. W. Daves, President; A. M. Mayo, Secretary.  

Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Mrs. A.M. Mayo, President, and Miss Jennie Marsh, Secretary.

Friendship Lodge, No. 26, I. O. O. F., L. H. Moses, W. C. T.; Miss Mary Siling, W. V. T.; Miss Laura Siling, Recording Secretary, and Miss Ida Marsh, Financial Secretary.  

Lake Charles Farmers’ Union, No. 587, J. C. LeBlue, President, and D. H. Reese, Secretary.  

Confidence Lodge, No. 17, A. O. U. W., L. Hirsch, M. W.; Frank Haskell, Secretary.  

German Benevolent Association, Peter Platz, President: Auguste Sekendorf, Secretary.

Lake Charles Steam Fire Company, No. 1, A. P. Pujo, President; L. Kaufman, Vice President; M. J. Rosteet, Treasurer, and J. E. Reente, Secretary.  

Young American Fire Company, No. 2, C. W. Meyer, President, and D. M. Foster, Secretary.

Pelican-Babcock Hook and Ladder Company, S. O. Shattuck, President; E. T. George, Vice President, and W. D. Andrus, Secretary.

Phoenix Hook and Ladder Company, Jesse Hagar, President, and Mack Cantin, Foreman.

            

            Bagdad. - Not the Bagdad rendered famous by the gilded stories of Sinbad the Sailor in Arabian Night’s Entertainments, but the puny village that once was at the ferry west of Lake Charles.  A ferry was established there in the olden time by Reese Perkins, and was an important institution.  It was the great crossing place for cattle drovers from Texas to New Orleans with fat beeves for market at the latter place.  Old citizens say they can remember when as many as 1500 and 2000 crossed there in a single day.

 

            The following incident is related of the place:  Reese Perkins sold the ferry and the land around it to a man named James H. Buchanan.  He allowed a man named Holt to lay out a town, and they would go partners in the enterprise.  Holt laid out his town and called it Lisbon; sold all the lots he could, and at any price he could get, pocketed the money and left - perhaps joined the American colony in Canada - leaving Mr. Buchanan with a bag to hold and both ends open.  Even to this day claimants turn up now and then and say they own a lot in Lisbon, and ask to have it pointed out to them. 

 

            The name of Lisbon was now changed to Bagdad, but still it has prospered little.  The ferry, two or three houses, a shingle mill, is about all there is of the town.  The American thus deals out its views, which are sound as the “Dollars of the Fathers” on the subject of ferries generally:

                       

The ferry question is one that interests a large number of the citizens of Calcasieu parish, and especially interests every one who is interested in the development of the city of Lake Charles.  It is a well know fact that a large portion of the produce of the northern part of our parish, which ought to be marketed in Lake Charles, is hauled to Lecomte, in Rapides parish, simply because of the high charges made by the ferries of the parish.  Because of this, the profits arising from the traffic in produce, and in supplying the farmers with their necessaries, are lost to the citizens of our parish; and, of course, the taxes on these profits are lost by our parish, and go to swell the revenues of Rapides.  Then why not have free ferries, or at least cheap ferries?  Why, says one, we can’t afford it; we want to raise a revenue from the public to help pay our parish expenses.  And we are sorry to say that the  short-sighted and suicidal policy of driving trade from our parish to another, and thus ultimately diminishing our parish revenues by a much greater sum than it would require to maintain free ferries at every crossing, has been adopted and carried out in the past. 

 

In order to raise a few hundred dollars from the sale of public ferries, the authorities of our parish have permitted ferries to tax the traveling public at so high a rate that farmers haul their produce two or three times as far as otherwise necessary, in order to avoid the enormous expense of ferriage.  Can this parish afford the enormous and continuous loss of trade this involves?  We think the people of the parish will speedily demand of their servants a radical change in this thing.  Something must be wrong somewhere.

 

            Vermilion parish has about three-fourths the population of Calcasieu, and the ordinary expenses of the parish would be at least three-fourths as great as Calcasieu.  The revenue of Vermilion parish last year was a little more than sixteen thousand dollars for taxes.  All of her bridges and ferries are free, and her script is worth one hundred cents on the dollar.  Calcasieu’s revenue from taxes is over forty thousand dollars, and yet our authorities find it necessary, or think they do, to raise an additional revenue from the traveling public by selling the right to run monopoly ferries to the highest bidder, and then have not enough money to pay the jurors summoned to the district court.  This system of monopoly ferries works beautifully, indeed!

 

            We are credibly informed that a responsible party offered to enter into bonds to run a ferry at a certain point in this parish, and obligate himself to cross wagons and teams for ten cents a round trip, each.  The ferry was made a monopoly, and sold to the highest bidder, and the price was limited to eighty cents per round trip for wagon and team.  It must be a great pleasure for the poor farmers and log men to pay eight times as much as necessary in order to cross the stream.  We are informed that the party above referred to is ready to enter into an agreement yet to give a cheap ferry.

 

            Now, we are not charging any one in particular with the wrong of establishing these monopolies.  If it is the State law that does it, let us agitate until the law is changed. If it is the fault or mistake of the police jury, let us hammer away until the mistake is remedied.  Let the people come to the front and demand justice, and they will get it. - Perrin.  

 

CHAPTER VI

 

            The Parish of Cameron - Boundary and Description - The Coast Marsh - Future Development of Cameron - Organization of the Parish - Legislative Act for its Creation - A Correspondent’s Impression of the Country and its Capabilities - Orange Culture - A Fruit Country Unsurpassed - What the People May Make It - Climate, Etc. - The Medical and Legal Professions - Churches and Schools - A Parish Well Supplied with Moral Influences, Etc.             

 

“Time was not yet.” - Dante.  

 

            The parish of Cameron as a body politic is comparatively young, it having been created in 1870 from portions of Calcasieu and Vermilion parishes.  It partakes somewhat of the nature of both - small bits of the Calcasieu prairies being interspersed with a good deal of the sea marshes of  Vermilion.  It has about twelve hundred square miles, nearly three-fourths of which, perhaps, is sea marsh.  From a pamphlet issued by the Commissioner of Immigration of Louisiana, the following extract is taken: 

 

Cameron has not yet had her day.  She must await the future and abide her time in patience.  She will doubtless, at some near day, be a busy place in canning fish, oysters and shrimp.  Her parish seat, Leesburg, is right on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Calcasieu River, and it must be that in the development that awaits that country Cameron will be greatly benefited by a situation that now seems like isolation.  If deep water ever comes to the mouth of the river, Leesburg will be a great place by reason of that alone.  When the immigrant takes hold of the coast marsh (as he will before the next quarter of a century), with its prodigiously fertile soil, then Cameron parish will come to the front.  Great will be the crops of sugar cane, rice, sea-island cotton, oranges, vegetables, etc. while the gulf will afford cheap and delicious food for the agriculturist and an inexhaustible supply for manufacturing or preserving canned goods.  So the sea and the land will both pour out their bounteous treasures to this, thus far disregarded parish.  This coast marsh country ought to have more said about it than has been.  The entire front of Louisiana is on the Gulf of Mexico.  Her south boundary is water, and her whole length from east to west is gulf coast.

 

            Boundaries, Etc. - The parish of Cameron is bounded on the north by Calcasieu parish, on the east by Vermilion parish, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by the Sabine River and lake of the same name.  The principal water courses in the parish are the Calcasieu and Mermentau Rivers.  The latter flows through Grand Lake about ten miles before it falls into the gulf and the former flows through Calcasieu Lake before it reaches the gulf.  Calcasieu Lake is some fifteen miles in length and about six or seven miles wide in the widest place. When the Calcasieu Pass is deepened, for which $75,000 have already been appropriated by the National Congress, and a deep channel cut through the lake, then the largest ocean steamers can ascend the Calcasieu River, which is a deep stream, to the town of Lake Charles, some fifty-five miles from the gulf.  Grand Lake is nearly square, and seven or eight miles across each way.

 

            The Lake Charles Echo of September 14, 1888, has the following of this parish:   Cameron parish is just south of, and was once a part of, Calcasieu parish; it lies directly on the coast.  Leesburg is the parish site, and contains a court house, jail, and one or two stores, but not a saloon in the parish.  There is not a lawyer in the parish, and you may think there is no need of one when we tell you that last July was the regular Grand Jury term of the District Court, and the first they had had for a year, and after a careful investigation, adjourned without finding a true bill.

 

            In interviewing Mr. D. W. Donahoe, who resides on Johnson’s Bayou, in this parish, we obtained some information of this section.  In September, 1886, the same time that Sabine Pass was blotted out of existence by the storm and overflow, all of Johnson’s Bayou was overflowed, which was the first time for a space of eighty years back.  That portion of the bayou which lies next to Sabine Pass is lower than the eastern portion, and there sixty-seven lives were lost, and all the stock, and the principal part of the houses swept away. The eastern portion of the bayou lost little stock and no lives.  Mr. Donahoe says Johnson’s Bayou is rebuilt and is in a flourishing condition.  Their corn will average thirty bushels per acre, and cotton, one bale.  The cotton is shipped in the seed by schooners, principally to Orange, Texas, some to Galveston. 

 

            The country is fine for cattle and sheep. Their fattest beeves are shipped from the range in January.  They have cattle giving from two to three gallons of milk per day, from the range alone during the winter.  The winter season is better for milk and butter than summer.  The orange trees have made remarkable growth, especially since the overflow, as that served to enrich the land. In January, 1886, the orange trees were killed there, as here.  They will gather a pretty fair crop of oranges another season. 

           

            The health was never better - in fact, was always good.  There was not a physician in the parish, unless there was one on the eastern border, and he was making a living by farming.  Mr. Joseph Jones, of Grand Chenier, in the eastern part of the parish, says the island is about thirty miles long and two or three miles wide, containing perhaps more than two hundred families.  There is almost one continuous, unbroken farm on the island from one end to the other.  They raise what corn is necessary, making about thirty barrels per acre, and making about one bale of cotton per acre.  They had gathered over two hundred thousand pounds of cotton by the first week in September; ship by schooner to Galveston.  Their orange trees were injured, like other sections, but will make some shipments this year.  The trees are in flourishing condition; no bugs of any kind, and a handsome yield is expected another year. They also raise a good quality of sugar and molasses.

 

            It is a range for stock, and they keep fat winter and summer.  This is a fine place for game, especially in the winter season; ducks, brant, geese, etc.  There is not a doctor on the island.

 

            Early Settlement. - Cameron parish is not thickly settled, owing to the vast area of marsh lands in the parish.  The settlements are confined to the high lands above overflow.  From Mr. E. D. Miller, of Lake Charles, a native of Cameron parish, however, the following of the early settlers was obtained:

 

Among the first families who settled in Cameron parish were those of John M. Smith and Millege [Milledge] McCall.  They settled in Grand Chenier, and were the only two families in that immediate section for several years.  McCall was quite a noted man for the period.  He was an old-time doctor and practiced considerably in an old-fashioned way; was also a justice of the peace, and the only one in Grand Chenier prior to the organization of the parish.  He was a good man, and well liked by everybody.  Both he and Smith have been dead many years.

 

George W. Wakefield was one of the proverbial “Ohio men.”  He came from the State of Ohio, and settled in the parish in 1840, about a mile from where Leesburg, the parish capital, is located.  He reared a large family and is still living but getting quite old and feeble.  When he came here, he says, there was plenty of game, that there were more deer then cattle to be seen then on the range.  Mr. Wakefield has a fine orange grove.

 

William Doxey was from North Carolina, and came to the parish about the same time with Wakefield.  He brought a number of negroes with him, and was quite an extensive sugar planter.  He and Wakefield are the two oldest settlers now living.  A son of Mr. Doxey, John A., has, it is said, the finest orange grove in the parish, and one of the finest in the State. Game was plenty when Mr. Doxey settled here, and still considerable small game is found. 

 

James Hall and James Root were early settlers in the west part of the parish, and both are long since dead.

 

A man named Griffith came about 1850 and settled in the same neighborhood. 

 

John M. Miller was one of the first settlers in the extreme eastern part of the parish.  He was born in Germany, but was brought by his parents to America when but an infant, and they settled in St. Landry parish.  Mr. Miller located in Cameron parish in 1847, where he died at the age of eighty-two years, and his wife at the age of eighty-five years.  He was the father of Mr. E. D. Miller, a practicing lawyer of Lake Charles.

 

            This comprises a list of what may be called old settlers, and brings the settlement of the parish up to about 1850, a period when people were coming in more rapidly.  The small area of uplands or prairies attracted agriculturists, and the great profusion of game brought the hunter and sportsmen.  Fifty years or more ago, when the first settlers came to Cameron, there were no productive farms, no pleasant homes here; no churches, no school houses, with their refining influences, but on every hand, and far as the eye could reach, a wild waste of wilderness, uninhabited, save by wild beasts and an occasional band of Indian hunters.  The population of the parish is now about three thousand souls. 

 

            In 1870, the population had increased sufficiently to awaken in the minds of the people the idea of organizing themselves into a parish of their own.  The seat of justice was too far out of reach - at Lake Charles or at Abbeville.  So at the session of the Legislature of 1870, the following act was framed:

 

Cameron Parish. - An Act for its formation, etc.

 

Section I.     Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in General Assembly convened,  That a new parish in the State of Louisiana be and the same is hereby created out of the southern portion of Calcasieu and the southwestern portion of Vermilion, to be called and known by the name of Cameron.

 

Section II.    Be it further enacted, etc.  That the following shall be the boundaries of the parish of Cameron, viz:  commencing at a point of the Sabine River, on the township line, dividing the townships eleven and twelve south; thence east on said township line to the range line, between ranges numbered two and three west; thence south on said range line to the Gulf of Mexico; thence along the coast to the mouth of the Sabine River, and thence up the Sabine River to the place of beginning. 

 

There are fifteen other sections of the act, and the entire act is printed both in French and English, and when the end is finally reached it is signed:
 

Geo. E. Brown, Secretary of State
Mortimer Carr, Speaker House Representatives  
Oscar J. Dunn, Lieut. Governor and President of the Senate
H. C. Warmoth, Governor of the State of Louisiana

Approved March 15, 1870.  

 

            The necessary officers were appointed, and the parish was set to work according to the laws of the commonwealth.  The parish seat was established at the mouth of the Calcasieu River, and is called Leesburg, but it is a town in little else except the name.  It consists of a court house, one small store, and, perhaps, half a dozen other buildings.  The post-office name of the place is Cameron, though, as stated, the town’s name is Leesburg.  The parish has no jail, and but one lawyer.  Neither is much needed, as there is but little litigation among the people.  What little there is, Mr. Miller, of Lake Charles, who was raised in the parish, is usually employed on the one side or the other.

 

            A writer* in the Lake Charles American thus gives his opinion of Cameron parish and its citizens:

           

With a threefold object that of health, business, and a tour for the purpose of describing the productions, scenery and attractiveness of our parish, a father and his daughter left home, on horse back, last week.  We traveled a distance of about forty-five miles along the sea coast, bordering the ridges under cultivation, as far to the east as Cow Island, stopping at Mr. P. V. Miller’s for the first night, where we found, as at all other places, a hearty welcome and generous hospitality.  Mr. Miller is engaged in both stock raising and agriculture.  He and his family own about a thousand head of fine stock, more or less graded, and the farm includes orange groves, peach orchards, and a number of large pecan trees.  Crops of cotton, corn and cane remarkably good.  This gentleman is one of our oldest settlers and influential citizens.  Cow Island, extending about twelve miles, and the ridge, averaging one-half mile wide, are closely settled.

 

The next of our stopping places was at the Widow Valcent Miller’s, whose farm is in a remarkably good state of cultivation, considering that it has been managed and worked by the lady, assisted only by her two daughters.  After this, a place some distance farther on, owned by Mr. Thos. Bosnal [Bosnall], where we admired sugar cane growing, with at least eight joints, and looking both vigorous and promising.  This is a new enterprise.

 

Leaving Cow Island and homeward tending, we paid a visit to our old friend, Mr. Geo. Mayne, where we found an orange grove containing about two hundred and fifty trees, of which a number measured eighteen inches in circumference and about twenty-five feet high.   A majority of the trees were bearing, some as many as seventy-five oranges. 

 

Another grove farther on, at Dr. Carter Sweeney’s, looked equally as fine and vigorous, as we rode along.  The next place was owned by Mr. J. D. McCall, our respected uncle, and who also is president of our police jury.  On his land are about five hundred fine trees; on one, at least, three hundred of the desirable fruit.  Adjoining, Mr. Thos. Dolan, of like flourishing property.  Next Mr. John Wetherill, whose sloping garden in front, home, orchard and grove beyond, tempted us to remain.  

 

 Passing onward, the place of Messrs. Jones and Stafford, also with fine orange groves.  Next the beautiful residence of Messrs. Doxey and son, where, as stated last year, there has been closest and skilled cultivation of the fruit trees, and scrutiny of the diseases which infest orange trees and have puzzled horticulturists for a long period.  Mr. Andrew Doxey thinks he has discovered a preventative against the ravages of the scale insect, and is sanguine of success in orange culture.  This grove contains about fifteen hundred trees, some eight inches in diameter - probably the largest on our route.  Close beyond is Mr. Andeal Miller, who has, perhaps, five hundred trees of excellent promise and variety.  Some three miles further on again, delightfully situated on the bank of the Mermentau River, is the now named village of “Riverside,” as suggested, at the request of the inhabitants and complimentary, by your correspondent.  At this point are three stores and several residences, post-office and shipping post.  We were informed by the respective merchants that there were at least two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of business transacted there during the year, including shipments of cotton, oranges, hides, melons, poultry, eggs, etc.  About a mile further on is the ferry across the Mermentau, where we were taken across by Mr. Willie Stafford, son of our esteemed aunt, Mrs. E. A. Stafford, who has been in charge of this, the principal and only ferry on the lower river, for some years.  Remained all night, and with pleasant recuperation and rest, besides finding our aged grandmother, now eighty odd years of age, hale, hearty and as vivacious as probably she was at eighteen.  On again next morning, two miles, and reached the home of Capt. James Welsh, where was a hearty welcome.  An extensive stock owner, a flourishing farm, orange grove, and erecting a new residence.

 

Rutherford Jones and others were passed in succession, the first of whom has availed himself of many of the latest improvements in agricultural machinery, and is cultivating his land with the skill of advanced knowledge.  Mr. Jones, also, one of the most energetic and sagacious of stock raisers and farmers, whose genial hospitality many friends are pleased to remember and where we frequently visit in his family.  A few miles farther and reached home much improved in health and good nature.

 

Your readers will perceive that all this section is prolific in cotton, corn, oranges, peaches, grapes, vegetables of every description, and last, though not least, in gigantic melons, perhaps the largest, earliest and best that can be produced in our Southern country. It is safe to surmise that at this point, above Leesburg, there could be delivered, as raised within a radius of eight miles, say, six hundred thousand melons annually, and ready for shipment from the last of May on to the end of July. If they want early melons in Kansas, or as far north as St. Louis, let there be transportation and they will be grown.

 

*Vivian McCall

 

            Orange Culture. -  Another correspondent* of the American gives its readers the following on orange culture, which is a large and profitable business in Cameron parish:

           

Last year you published an able and instructive article on “Orange Culture in Southwest Louisiana,” from the pen of Hon. James Welsh, of Cameron parish.  He wrote from thirty years’ experience in growing and handling oranges on the gulf coast of Cameron parish, and the object of this article is not to differ with his views, but rather to mention some additional facts.

 

Orange seeds should be planted when removed from the fruit, or soon afterward; they should not be allowed to become shriveled.  As Mr. Welsh says, they should be the largest seed from the best fruit, and should be covered by three inches of soil.  The seed bed can hardly be too highly fertilized.  Mr. Welsh says the trees when three years old may be transplanted from the nursery to the orchard.  That age is perhaps the best for that purpose, yet a tree six or seven years old may be transplanted without injury.  Victor Touchy, the veteran orange culturist, of Lake Charles, can transplant in January an orange tree seven years old, which will bloom the next month and bear fruit the same year.   I have known him to do it, and he will guarantee to do it.

 

Mr. Welsh says that sixty-four trees on one acre of land, at seven years from planting, will afford sufficient fruit for domestic purposes.  I know that seven years from planting the seed is the general accepted period in Southwest Louisiana for an orange tree to commence bearing, yet there are numerous instances in Calcasieu, Vermilion, and, I have no doubt, Cameron, parishes where orange trees have borne well developed fruit at five years from the seed.  The late Dr. Wm. H. Kirkman, of Lake Charles, informed me, some twelve years ago, that the largest orange tree he ever saw in Calcasieu parish, and which, when he first saw it, was bearing at least three thousand oranges, was on the left shore of Prien’s or Little Lake, about four miles in an air line below Lake Charles; and that its owner, well known as a highly respectable and truthful resident of Calcasieu parish, assured him that it was then only five years old from the seed; that the seed came up in a deserted hog pen, and the tree grew so rapidly and luxuriantly that he protected it by fence rails from his farm animals.  My friend Desire Hebert, of Lake Arthur, which is bordered by Calcasieu and Vermilion parishes, tells me - and I have seen newspaper communications from Lake Arthur to the same effect - that orange trees at Lake Arthur frequently bear at five years from the seed.  These instances prove that in an exceptionally rich soil, in a favorable locality, with careful culture, a man may have on one acre of land oranges for market as well as for domestic use at five and six years from seed. 

 

I mention this because Mr. Welsh says that from sixty-four trees, on one acre of land, there may be expected, at ten years, four hundred oranges per tree; at twenty years, three thousand oranges per tree; and at thirty years, five thousand oranges per tree.  His estimate was probably based on the ordinary methods of orange culture on tracts of land embracing several acres devoted to that purpose.  It seems evident that on exceptionally rich land, with exceptionally careful culture, largely better results may be obtained in much less time. 

 

Few persons except orange growers have any idea of the value of orange trees.  About fifteen years ago a New Orleans newspaper stated that the owner of six hundred bearing orange trees, a few miles below New Orleans, refused an offer of fifty thousand dollars for them, and sold his orange crop that year for seven thousand dollars.  Afterward that statement was verified by a gentleman who informed me he had visited that orange grove and knew its owner personally.  Again, few persons are aware of the great age to which orange trees will continue bearing.  In Freidley’s Practical Treatise on Business, it is said that there is a bearing orange tree in Rome, Italy, known to be over three hundred years old.  The orange tree has great vitality.  The unprecedented freezing weather of two weeks’ duration in the winter of 1886-87 killed to the ground all the orange trees in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, yet in both parishes hundreds of trees which have since grown up from the roots of those frozen trees are now in bloom and some of them bore a few oranges last year, though many of them have received scarcely any cultivation.

 

In 1868 I was informed by a Galveston dealer that Galveston fruit dealers always paid much more for Calcasieu than for other oranges, because they were larger, more juicy, of better flavor, and better endured transportation and exposure in open market.  At that time Calcasieu embraced all of what is now Cameron parish lying between the Sabine and Mermentau Rivers.  In the winter of 1866 I gathered from trees in Lake Charles, and at the Kayough place, a few miles below Lake Charles, one hundred oranges, nearly all of which averaged fifteen inches in circumference.

 

It is a popular idea, and Mr. Welsh holds it, that an orange grove should be near a wide river, lake, or other large body of water.  Without expressing an opinion on that point, I know that orange and other fruit trees on the open prairie, from a half to three-quarters of a mile east of the eastern shore of Lake Charles were always less affected by extremely cold weather than similar trees on the banks of Lake Charles and of the Calcasieu River; and I have little doubt that, barring very hard freezes, which rarely occur in this latitude, the orange may be cultivated on all the highlands of the Calcasieu and Cameron prairies, and on all their marsh lands when reclaimed, as they will  be, as far as from thirty to thirty-five miles in an air line north of the Gulf of Mexico. 

 

The early completion of the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railroad, now assured, will open up Northern markets for Calcasieu and Cameron oranges, accessible in two and three days from shipment, and will result in dotting the Calcasieu and Cameron prairies with orange groves.  Purchasers as generally heretofore, will buy the crop on the trees, months before it ripens, and the grove owners will save the time, labor and expense of gathering and marketing the fruit.  I am confident the next ten years will witness wonderful progress in orange culture in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes.

 

*George H. Wells

 

            The cultivation of fruits in Cameron is one of its great industries, and perhaps always will be.  When the marsh lands are reclaimed, then it will become also a great rice-growing region.  But it will always be a fruit country.  When its marsh lands are reclaimed and brought into market; when their great fertility and healthfulness are made known to the outside world, then will the tide of immigration be turned hitherward, and the country become thickly settled.  Pertinent to these predictions, a great writer, with vast and varied experience in settling the Western country - and the same applies as well to Southwest Louisiana - has said:

 

Whenever a new country comes into notice and available occupancy, there is always a rush of people made up of three classes.  Among the first to start are many uneasy, visionary people, Micawber’s progeny, who instead of sitting still waiting for something to turn up, keep on the move, expecting to find, somewhere, something already turned up, fully fitted for their easy and comfortable occupancy.  These people take one superficial look at any new country; and turn right about homeward, or start for some other just heard-of region, to be in like manner disappointed.  There were many thousands of such among the early visitors to the rich but then undeveloped prairies of Illinois and Iowa.  These are the croakers who return from every new country and ventilate their own inefficiency and lack of pluck in the newspapers.

           

A second numerous class is made up of hard working, industrious persons, anxious to improve their own condition and that of their families; but from lack of economy, skill or judgment, they will be “ne’er-do-wells” anywhere.  They stay here awhile, there awhile, but keep on the move, seldom remaining long in any place.  There were many of these among the first comers in all the best States west of the Alleghenies.   Large numbers of both the above classes were waiting on the borders of Oklahoma, and in many other newly developing regions when about to be opened.  The whole Western country was overrun by them when the free Homestead Act went into operation; they are mostly worthy people; the trouble is in their inherited make-up.

 

The genuine pioneers forming the third class have not only ambition, enterprise, skill and economy, but faith and persistence.  When such people came to Illinois, for example, and found blank prairies, a tough sod to be broken, fuel scarce, supply points only to be reached by days of pilgrimage over soft roads, no markets for their products, everything forbidding except what faith saw underground, they buckled down to work, undismayed by any difficulties or deprivations, resolved to “turn up something” wherever they chanced to locate.  These or their children are largely the present occupants of the grand farming regions of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Dakota.  They are thickly scattered in all the States and Territories westward to the Pacific.  There is plenty of room yet for scores of millions of this class, despite all the evil reports constantly coming back from the class of pioneers first above described.

 

There are on this continent no natural Arcadias -no places were the pioneer will not find many sacrifices and deprivations, and much hard work to be done.  There are few places where persistent effort and stick-to-it-iveness will not succeed, if combined with a reasonable amount of what may be called “calculation.”  There is no place where the earlier settlers will not meet with many disappointments in the first years, with bad seasons, droughts and prolonged storms, poor crops alternating with the good ones, or with swarms of destructive insects, etc.  It was so in Eastern Kansas and Nebraska, now fertile garden farms; it was so even in Illinois and Iowa; it was so, and still is partly so, in Minnesota and Dakota, in Montana, and in all region westward.  No places will ever be found perfect. But those who stick their stakes deeply down almost anywhere, except in actual natural deserts, and keep at it, will in the end be victors.

 

            The completion of the Kansas City, Watkins & Gulf Railroad will, doubtless, have a great effect on the development of Cameron parish.  Mr. J. B. Watkins, who is building the road, has bought, it is said, most of the marsh lands, and when his road is completed, will then turn his attention to developing and bringing then into market.  Mr. Watkins is doing a great work for this particular section of the country, as well as for all Southwest Louisiana, and should be supported and assisted by the people in his work.

 

            Upon the advantages, climate and capabilities of this wonderful country and enthusiast on the subject thus sings its praises. 

 

Where have we the most even climate and the cheapest protection against extremes?  I answer, confidently, the coast line of the Gulf of Mexico.  One season merges almost imperceptibly into another; extreme heat and cold, about seventy degrees, and the climatic changes very gradual, about twenty degrees, covers the changes of the twenty-four hours, and five to ten degrees from month to month.  Corn can be planted from February to July, and gardens made from January to November, and fuel and lumber at nominal prices; wool and cotton at lowest price, stock of all kinds roam over the prairies at will, and are never fed by the hand of man. 

 

The cereals here require the same labor as further north, but at a more seasonable time.  Fall sown crops mature and are harvested in May, while sugar, cotton, hay and rice are harvested from August to January.  There is little to do during the heated term.  And for fruits, delicious fruits, luxuries of life, necessities of health, solace of our leisure hours.  Where are our orchards to-day?  Follow the coast line and you will see nearly all. The peach king of the world, Parnell, of Georgia; and for pears, Thomasville, of same State; for tropical and semi-tropical fruits the coast line alone, while figs, apricots, prunes, olives, grapes, pomegranates and berries are in abundance.  Go to the coast for fish, oysters, game, sugar, rice, cotton, corn, tobacco and textile fabrics.  Walnuts, pecans, almonds and most nut bearing trees.  It’s eminently a tree bearing country - a prairie only by accident.

 

            The professions in Cameron parish have but a brief history.  Physicians do not like to stay long in the parish; the people are too much scattered, and it requires too much riding and that over a marsh country to visit them.  Besides, the population is sparse and the climate extremely healthy, or as a gentleman expressed it - “The country is distressingly healthful.”  At present there are two practicing physicians in the parish, and only one lawyer.

 

The religious and educational facilities of the parish are excellent.  There are four churches.  One Catholic church; the Methodist Episcopal church, South, has buildings, and the Baptist church has one.  These are all supplied with minister and regular services are held in them.

 

There are ten public school houses in the parish, and schools are taught for the usual length of time each year.  There are several schools carried on in private buildings each year, in addition to the public schools.  Perrin.  

 

      

 

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