Tunica Hills Preservation Area provides wilderness experience near St. Francisville, LA

By Anne Butler

Louisiana’s state preservation areas have been carefully selected to preserve and interpret significant natural areas showcasing a wide variety of landscapes and environments. The nearly 700-acre Tunica Hills State Preservation Area is a splendid example, a spectacular site along the Mississippi River including a towering bluff and the steep wooded ravines for which this unique area is noted.

Ranging from St. Francisville northwest along the Mississippi River, the Tunica Hills are rare land formations found only in a narrow strip from West Feliciana Parish north into Tennessee. They are actually loessial ridges created by dust storms of the Glacier period which swept in from the western plains carrying powdery fertile soil to form high vertical cliffs resting on the sand-clay bottom of an ancient sea bed. In cool, deep shady glades and steep forested hills, the area harbors rarities like wild ginseng, Eastern chipmunks and other flora and fauna found nowhere else in Louisiana.

These rugged hills provide the perfect backdrop for a huge variety of outdoor activities, including some of the most challenging hiking in the state. In wintertime, scenic forest vistas open up which are not visible to hikers in the lush crowded overgrowth of summer, and even Sunday drivers can appreciate the hilly roads, some so ancient they began life as prehistoric game trails stamped indelibly into the soil of lands claimed by native Indians long before the first Europeans arrived. Birdwatchers find the area still provides unspoiled habitat for the same rich abundance of birdlife that so inspired artist-naturalist John James Audubon in the 1820's that he painted many of his famous bird studies right there.


The development plans for the Tunica Hills State Preservation Area encompass hundreds of acres of these loessial bluffs and bayous, with interpretive centers telling the story of the early Tunica Indians and the later Civil War battle at nearby Como Landing, while introducing Louisiana's "flatlanders" to the wonders of this hilly wilderness. The interpretive center will consist of several units elevated high above the ravines to showcase the uniqueness of this diverse ecosystem, and there will be hiking trails, a tram system, amphitheater and river overlook, plus primitive camping sites.

Planning for this unique preservation area began in earnest in 2002 with the approval of $700,000 in funding for planning and design. In 2012, the Governor’s Office won approval from the State Bond Commission for a non-cash line of credit of nearly $3 million for Phase I construction, which will include site access and entrance road, tram trail including several timber bridges and fueling station, purchase of two trams, bridges and water well, utilities and site preparation, five miles of hiking trails, fencing and 3100 feet of boardwalks. Subsequent phases, estimated to cost more than $10 million, will include construction of the Interpretive Center and observation deck overlooking the Mississippi River, plus an entrance station and manager’s residence.

The Office of State Parks considers this site to have the potential to become one of Louisiana’s most unique tourist destinations, and the master plan has been carefully designed to provide environmental education about the site’s unique natural systems. Designed for low impact on the surroundings, the planned construction requires little removal of natural vegetation, accommodating existing trees and land formations, while the sustainable design of structures and bridges fosters an appreciation for the natural environment, utilizing galvanized or natural materials requiring little or no maintenance.

Plans call for using abandoned logging roads and natural ridges as entrance roads and trails as much as possible. Vehicular traffic will be limited, and alternative fuel vehicles will transport visitors to the highest part of the site for orientation. The five-mile trail system will provide an on-the-ground experience with varied levels of difficulty. Utilizing old logging roads, stream beds and natural cleared areas, the trails will be marked, with vertical transitions for safety. Only minor clearing will be required, and there will be trash receptacles, interpretive exhibits and rest areas along the trail system. Besides enhancing the experience, these amenities and the designated trail system will serve to control access and lessen the overall impact on the natural area.

The state has the authority to enter into a contract by July 2013 and to spend the initial funding after that date. At this time, the Office of State Parks continues to work with the legislature and governor’s office to actually obtain the appropriated funding and to gain approval for additional monies required to continue development of this site. Once completed, the Tunica Hills State Preservation Area promises to become a popular destination for ecotourists, outdoor recreation buffs, nature lovers and all manner of visitors.

The Tunica Hills area abounds in other prime recreation possibilities as well. Clark Creek Natural Area just across the state line near Pond, Mississippi, has challenging trails leading to a series of spectacular waterfalls. The Tunica Hills Wildlife Management Area has thousands of acres of rugged hills, high bluffs and deep shaded ravines sheltering a significant wealth of rare plant and animal species, including the Louisiana black bear. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (225-765-2360) maintains this property in two separate tracts for public hunting, trapping, hiking, riding, birding and sightseeing, and has pamphlets delineating regulations governing its use.

Besides the outstanding recreational opportunities offered in the surrounding Tunica Hills, St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com

RESTORATION OF OLD TEMPLE GIVES ST. FRANCISVILLE NEW CULTURAL VENUE

By Anne Butler

A gathering of the St. Francisville community in December 2012 replicated a similar gathering more than a century earlier, both celebrating the opening of beautiful Temple Sinai perched on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River. The earlier gathering, in 1903, marked the long-awaited opening of permanent place of worship for the area’s Jewish residents, while the recent gathering celebrated the restoration and re-opening of this significant structure and a return to life as a welcomed cultural venue for the region.

The recent celebration at the temple was attended by preservationists and community members, including a number of descendants of the original Jewish founders and several who attended the first central public school in St. Francisville which had been constructed largely through funding provided by one of those early Jewish residents, Julius Freyhan. The school alma mater included mention of Julius Freyhan, but few students in the half-century the school was in use actually remembered their benefactor. The temple rededication included a reminder of that history.

In 1820 there were only 2700 Jews in the United States, but through the mid-1800s waves of immigrants arrived to escape anti-Semitism, particularly from Bavaria and the German states along the Rhine, and Alsace-Lorraine in pre-industrial France. Forbidden to own land in the Old Country, these immigrants found their expertise in merchandising and finance filled a crucial gap in an agrarian society like the Cotton Kingdom, as they followed the westward movement of the cotton empire from depleted eastern fields to the rich fertile lands of the Mississippi River corridor.

Often arriving penniless, the Jewish immigrants began as peddlers, carrying their wares in heavy packs or pushcarts until they prospered enough to purchase a horse and wagon, taking much-needed merchandise to isolated farm families in the countryside in the days before rural mail delivery. When they could, they moved up to clerk in stores, then opened stores of their own in the little country towns that served as commercial centers for the surrounding plantations.

The whole southern economy in the Cotton Kingdom was balanced precariously on credit extensions at every level, and the rural merchants played on important role in this agrarian system, providing the drygoods and farming equipment, the underpinnings and practicalities for the cotton culture, with the shrewd business sense to survive the ebb and flow of a fluctuating economy based on chancy crops and credit. After the Civil War, the Jewish merchants were able to extend life-saving credit to suffering planters and sharecroppers, and when the large cotton factorage firms failed to recover after the war, the country storekeepers became pivotal figures in cotton marketing and financing. At a time when cash was in short supply and banks unreliable, their stores had the family and business contacts to provide far-reaching credit arrangements that allowed them to become conduits for funneling some much-needed cash into rural areas.

As these hard-working immigrants prospered, the South became the center of Jewish population in the country, offering religious and political freedom as well as the possibility of social and financial success. Jews in the South? Who knew! From Vicksburg to Port Gibson, from Natchez to Woodville, from Bayou Sara and St. Francisville to New Orleans, there were thriving Jewish communities; Donaldsonville had more Jewish mayors than any other Southern town, and even the Confederacy had outstanding officials like Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. In the St. Francisville/Bayou Sara area, important names included Max Dampf, born in Germany’s Black Forest, who served on the bank board, was a member of the Board of Supervisors of Election, had a general merchandise store, and was called “a wide-awake progressive businessman and valued member of society;” Joseph Stern from Weisbaden had a livery and horse and mule market; L. Bach and Company sold goods wholesale and retail; shoemaker Moritz Rosenthal arrived in a wagon pulled by oxen and his son dealt in imported drygoods (and it would be his granddaughter Hannah who saw to it that the Hebrew Rest cemetery was kept in immaculate condition all the days of her life); Abe Stern had horses and mules, and Joseph Goldman had a bar room and grocery store; M.C. Levy handled general merchandise, as did Adolph Teutsch who came from Bavaria; Picard and Weil sold plantation supplies; Morris Burgas, who had studied at the University of Berlin and at Oxford, kept books and managed cotton warehouses and a mercantile house for his uncle.

Accepted as contributing members of their adopted communities along the Mississippi River corridor, these immigrants as they succeeded in business supported public works and served in important civic offices. Synagogues and temples were built, cemeteries established and charitable organizations formed as the Jews shared their prosperity in great philanthropies. Typical was Julius Freyhan, who arrived penniless in America at age 21 in 1851 and by the time he died in 1904 was described as one of the wealthiest and most respected men in the state. In Bayou Sara and St. Francisville he built up a business empire of stores and saloons, cotton gins, gristmills, sawmill, and a drygoods mercantile selling everything from buggies to coffins. J. Freyhan and Company, later known as M&E Wolf when his brothers-in-law took over the business, served as the principal source of supply for a dozen Louisiana parishes and southwest Mississippi counties, in a year selling $1 million worth of goods and handling 14,000 bales of cotton.

Julius Freyhan and later his widow provided the bulk of the funding to construct the parish’s first central public school, the beautiful brick building adjacent to the temple. And it was in his opera house in Bayou Sara that the first organized Jewish congregation came together, after meeting initially in the Meyer Hotel in 1892. In 1893 the group began planning to build a temple, and in 1901 a formal incorporation known as Temple Sinai was set up, with livery stable owner Ben Mann as president of the congregation. Active work began on the building on high ground in St. Francisville in July 1902. Julius Freyhan donated the organ for the temple, his brother-in-law Emanuel Wolf the Perpetual Lamp.

The local newspaper, the True Democrat, ran a lengthy tribute to the dedication of Temple Sinai in its March 28, 1903 issue, calling the ceremony “an event involving all members of this small community.” Said the article, “The event par excellence of the week has been the dedicatory services on Sunday last of the house of worship recently built by Hebrew citizens. It was an hour of rejoicing, and Christian friends, fully sympathetic, rejoiced too. The time of waiting was agreeably passed by comments on the beauty of the synagogue.”

The 1903 dedication ceremony included prayers and addresses by not only rabbis but also the Episcopal rector and several esteemed local judges (including Judge Samuel McCutcheon Lawrason who was the great-grandfather of one of the speakers at the 2012 rededication), musical offerings by a choir composed of members of the congregation and Gentile friends, and a sermon preached by Rabbi Dr. Max Heller of Temple Sinai in New Orleans, who had just presided over the marriage of Julius Freyhan’s daughter Juliet to his old friend from Hebrew Union College, Rabbi William Freidman; Rabbi Friedman was raised at the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum, one of the regional beneficiaries of funding from Bayou Sara’s B’nai B’rith lodge of which Julius Freyhan had been a founding member.

A children’s procession, carrying US flags, palm leaves and lighted candles, represented most of the local Jewish families: the Manns, Levys, Dreyfuses, Fischels, Teutsches, Wolfs, Schlesingers and Edigers. The building, called “the most attractive house of worship save one in St. Francisville,” was filled, the newspaper said, “by a large congregation composed of both Jews and Gentiles. The feeling of reciprocity among all town residents when any good work is to be done is shown in this as in all other cases, and is especially due to this congregation, as they are charitable to the needy, and kindly towards all without regard to creed.”

The entire community, then, celebrated in the spring of 1903 the opening of Temple Sinai, which for several decades served a dwindling and aging congregation as members sought expanded professional and financial opportunities in New Orleans and elsewhere; in the early 1920s the beautiful building on the hill became a Presbyterian church, later to be abandoned when most of the Presbyterians joined the Methodists down Royal St.

In December 2012 the community gathered once again to celebrate Temple Sinai’s superb restoration by Holly and Smith Architects, with yet another generation of children singing and processing with palm fronds and candles and flags, plus remarks by Freyhan Foundation leaders, prayers led by Rabbi Barry Weinstein, and a concluding reception in the same location as in 1903 (now the parish hall of Grace Episcopal Church). The return to community use of this historic structure is a wonderful example of coordinated efforts on every level, from the US Park Service and Senator Mary Landrieu to state government, from the parish school board and police jury and Town of St. Francisville administration to the Freyhan Foundation’s board and the commitment of dedicated individuals, beginning with the late Billie Magee and now under the determined direction of Nancy Vinci. Freyhan Foundation director Joanna Sternberg very capably guided the year-long restoration, which was funded by donations and a grant from the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures program.

Now the temple, with its superb acoustics, circular oak pews, colorful stained glass windows and new service wing with kitchen and restrooms, will provide space for weddings and lectures and all manner of nondenominational community cultural activities. Perhaps of equal importance, its re-opening, coupled with plans for completing the restoration of the Freyhan School, has given the entire area a greater understanding and appreciation of the historic contributions of an often-neglected but significant segment of society. Information on use of the temple is available by calling the West Feliciana Historical Society museum director at 225-635-6330.


St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA,

November 30, December 1 and 2

By Anne Butler

St. Francisville’s economy was predominantly agriculture-based into the mid-20th century; the farmers planted sweet potatoes, the farmers’ wives canned the potatoes at the local processing plant, and prosperity proved elusive. But even then, visitors were drawn to the area by its nostalgic charm.

Grand Greek Revival Greenwood offered house tours and the setting for swashbuckling movies like Drango (1957) starring dashing Jeff Chandler. At gothic Afton Villa, Aunt Shug made pralines for the tourists and her husband in top hat and tails swept deep bows to entice passing carss in from two-lane Highway 61. Bewhiskered Jimmy Bowman and his spinster sisters offered peeks of the rundown but still glorious Rosedown Plantation house and overgrown gardens, timidly proffering penny postcards for sale. The Cottage opened the first B&B where would-be Scarlett O’Haras were served morning coffee on silver trays while snuggled in fine four-poster beds.

Alas, Greenwood and Afton Villa burned; the sweet potato cannery closed. The little town of St. Francisville seemed destined to fade away as well, until 1972 when the passionate preservationists of the recently formed historical society hit upon a plan to bring in tourists---and money---with the Audubon Pilgrimage, opening the doors to private historic homes and gardens one weekend each spring. The pilgrimage had as much to say to residents as it did to visitors, giving locals an increased appreciation of the natural beauty and historic treasures they too often took for granted. Is this history relevant today, the cultural antecedents that made the community what it is? As one rather earthy early New Orleans legislator commented, “If ya ain’t got culcha, ya ain’t got sh**!”

For forty years the popular pilgrimage proved St. Francisville indeed had “culcha,” but all the “culcha” in the world isn’t worth much if it isn’t economically sustainable, and this springtime tour lasted a mere three days a year and featured only historic properties. With changing demographics of tourism and year-round interest in visiting the area, it was only natural to augment the spring festival with what has become the region’s most popular small-town Christmas celebration, “Christmas in the Country,” featuring fabulous shopping opportunities and fun-filled family-friendly downtown activities, plus a library fundraising tour of outstanding contemporary houses as well.


Christmas in St. Francisville has always been a magical time. In the 19th century, country folks from miles around would pile into wagons to do their weekly shopping in the little town’s dry-goods emporiums that offered everything from buggies to coffins. At Christmas, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.

It’s still that way today. Millions of tiny white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the extensive downtown National Register Historic District into a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas in the Country November 30, December 1 and 2, as the historic little rivertown showcases its continuing vitality as the center of culture and commerce for the entire surrounding region. The enthusiastic sponsors of Christmas in the Country are the downtown merchants, and the real focus of the weekend remains the St. Francisville area's marvelous little shops, which go all out, hosting Open Houses with refreshments and entertainment for shoppers while offering spectacular seasonal decorations, great gift items, and extended hours. A variety of fine shops occupy historic structures throughout the downtown area and spread into the outlying district, each unique in its own way, and visitors should not miss a single one.


Beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, Santa Claus comes to town to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree, followed by a public reception at Town Hall hosted by longtime St. Francisville Mayor Billy D'Aquilla and featuring performances by the First Baptist Church Children’s Choir and West Feliciana Middle School Choir. The Baton Rouge Symphony presents its annual concert of seasonal selections and dessert reception beginning at 7 p.m. at Hemingbough; tickets are available at the Bank of St. Francisville. And designated residences along Royal and Ferdinand Streets allow visitors to “Peep into our Holiday Homes” Friday and Saturday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 1, begins with a 7:30 a.m. Community Prayer Breakfast at United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall just off Royal St., followed by Breakfast with St. Nick for children at Jackson Hall next to Grace Church at 8 and 9:30 a.m., sponsored by the Women’s Service League (reservations recommended; www.womensserviceleague.com or 225-721-3563). The Women’s Service League also sells fresh wreaths and pre-wrapped Plantation Country Cookbooks all weekend on Ferdinand St. next to the library, with proceeds benefiting local civic and charitable activities.



Throughout the day Saturday there will be children’s activities and photos with Santa, the Main Street Band (noon to 2), handmade crafts and food vendors in oak-shaded Parker Park. There will also be entertainment in various locations throughout the downtown historic district, featuring choirs, dancers, musicians, and other performers.

The angelic voices of the Bains Lower Elementary children's choir—Voices in Motion-- are raised at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand St. at 10 a.m. From 9:30 to 10:30 the West Feliciana High School Performance Choir sings at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, followed from 11 to 11:45 by the school’s Beginning and Advanced Choirs. At 11:30 on Ferdinand St. the Westside Cloggers group put on a lively show at Bella Vita Salon, followed by a Shin Sun Korean Martial Arts demonstration. From 10 to 2 the Sweet Adelines’ Lyrical Quartet strolls and sings along Ferdinand and Royal Sts., while the Angola Inmate Traveling Band from Louisiana State Penitentiary performs across from Garden Symposium Park from noon to 4. Kevin Johnson sings on the front porch of Town Hall 11 to 1, and the Swinging Willows Jazz Band performs at the library from noon to 1. Arts for All hosts a photography exhibit at its studio in the Quarters on Commerce St. 10 to 5.

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League, this year’s theme being “Joy to the World.” Dozens of gaily decorated parade floats vie for coveted prizes, accompanied by cheerleaders, bands, bagpipes, vintage cars, marching ROTC units and dancers. Santa rides resplendent in a magnificent sleigh pulled by Louisiana State Penitentiary's immense prized Percheron draft horses, groomed and gleaming in the sunlight with their sleigh bells jingling. Grand marshall is dedicated town employee Eric Schneider, who spreads his own joy on his daily rounds maintaining St. Francisville’s remarkably litter-free streets.

At 6 p.m. on Saturday, the United Methodist Church on Royal St. hosts a Community Sing-a-long, while the First Baptist Church on US 61 at LA 10 sponsors its very popular Live Nativity from 6 to 8 p.m., reminding of the reason for the season. In addition, Saturday evening from 6 to 8, visitors are welcomed for candlelight tours, period music and wassail at Audubon State Historic Site on LA Hwy. 965, where artist-naturalist John James Audubon painted many of his famous bird studies in the early 1820's. This historic home never looks lovelier than in the soft romantic glow of the candles that were its only illumination for its early years. During the day from 10 to 4, the historic site observes its annual holiday festival.


Christmas in the Country activities continue on Sunday, December 2, with in-town activities and, north of St. Francisville in the Lake Rosemound/Laurel Hill area, the Friends of the Library Tour of Homes, featuring six unique homes on four private properties, with refreshments provided by Heirloom Cuisine. Tickets are available from the West Feliciana Parish Library, at the featured homes and other businesses on the day of the tour (for information, 225-635-3364). Features include the Figges’ lakeside country retreat on Hazelwood Plantation, a cottage called Kwamalusi (Zulu for “place of the shepherd”) housing retired bishop Charles Jenkins and his wife, Paul and Mary Ann Stevens’ Micajah Lodge which began life as a log cabin, and several incredible cypress-and-glass structures surrounded by lakes and waterfalls and gardens owned by the Roland family.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

The Secret to ST. FRANCISVILLE’S Litter-free Roadways

By Anne Butler

If your idea of housecleaning is to sweep the room with a glance, you’re not alone. And travelers passing through Louisiana’s littered landscapes must assume this attitude extends to our roadways as well. But drive through the little rivertown of St. Francisville, LA, and it’s a whole different matter—clean and not a piece of trash in sight, at least not for long. Because, you see, St. Francisville has a secret weapon in the war against litter, and his name is Eric Schneider.



The chief statewide litter enforcement agency in this Sportsman’s Paradise is the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which last year issued 914 citations for littering, an act of negligence that costs state taxpayers some $40 million a year and can be hazardous to the health of wildlife and disastrous for the environment---an orange peel, for example, takes six months to biodegrade, a plastic bag ten to twenty years. Convictions for littering carry fines from $175 to $1,000, plus hours of public service in litter abatement programs. The St. Francisville municipal code has ordinances against littering (Section 11-23, Code 1979, #8-3005 states “No person, while a driver or passenger in a vehicle, shall throw or deposit litter upon any street or other public place, or upon private property,” and there are other sections prohibiting truck loads causing litter, littering in parks or bodies of water, on vacant or private properties). Additionally, local law enforcement agencies and the parish District Attorney have joint initiatives to control the litter problem.



The LDWF hotline at 1-888- LITRBUG provides witnesses with an opportunity to report violators, and so does Litter-Bug.org, where specifics are posted like “I-10 eastbound near Perkins Road exit, Baton Rouge, white Lexus, lady threw out Styrofoam box of food and coke can, 5:15 p.m., October 8, 2011,” and often even contain license plate numbers to aid in enforcement. Shame on the lady in the white Lexus, whose fast-food packaging and beverage container are among the four most common litter items, the other two being cigarettes and candy/snack packaging.



It is interesting to note, however, that this site has not one single posting for St. Francisville, where the streets are startingly clean and litter-free. And that, according to longtime mayor Billy D’Aquilla, is largely thanks to Eric Schneider. “We get compliments daily on the cleanliness of the town,” the mayor says, “and that is due to Eric’s dedication. Since he was hired in April 2000, he has been one of the best employees the town has ever had. Eric is ideal for this job because of his personality.”

That personality includes a sly sense of humor that stood him in good stead when he and his late mother, a gifted artist, moved from New Orleans to St. Francisville to join an older brother who is a local physician; as one of few Tulane supporters in a hotbed of LSU Tiger enthusiasts, Eric took a lot of good-natured ribbing, but he learned to respond in kind and refers to himself as the town clown, a mischievous twinkle brightening blue eyes above a big bushy moustache. He also has unending supply of patience and a sharp eye for detail that lets no speck of litter escape his bag as he trudges along his set route with such dedication to consistency that the mayor says you can set your watch by him. That eye for detail is matched by an incredible memory. “I was born on January 26, 1953,” says Eric, “at 12 o’clock noon. It was a Monday, and I was a month early. That was the only time I was ever in a rush!”



Eric’s day begins at 6 a.m. at Town Hall, when he raises the flags and makes coffee for employees before setting out on his appointed rounds. Other than a few pauses to catch his breath and spread a little cheer chatting with shopowners along the way, he walks and picks up litter along every single street and highway in St. Francisville’s town limits---along US 61, along LA 10, and along a number of hilly streets through the little town’s commercial and residential districts--- and neither sleet nor snow nor dark of night stays him from his appointed rounds. At 4:00 quitting time he goes home and walks some more with Dottie, his Jack Russell terrier.



On busy four-lane US 61 he contends with lack of shoulders and careless drivers whizzing along talking on cellphones; on other wooded roads he keep a sharp eye out for snakes. Unless it is really pouring, he doesn’t let a little drizzle stop him, and his trusty wide-brimmed straw hat protects him from the blazing sun. He probably walks more than a dozen miles a day, slow and steady, and wears out two or three pairs of steel-toed shoes every month. He fills three or four large garbage bags with litter daily; when he first started the job, in areas that had never been cleaned before, he was gathering a couple of truckloads a day.

It must remind him of The Myth of Sisyphus, doing the same thing over and over again, picking up more and more fast-food wrappers and beer cans, but Eric sometimes finds useful discards like tools and brooms, even preserved flowers he transferred to a family gravesite. His strangest pick-up was an entire lady’s outfit---dress, shoes, stockings, panties---all laid out flat as if the wearer had miraculously wafted away and left her earthly trappings behind.



At age 59 (sixty in January), Eric contends with a club foot, two bad knees and a bad back, but he’s got a lot of love in his heart and says it’s God’s will to keep him going. “I LOVE my job,” he says, “and I give a little lagniappe to people, too; people love that. You want help, I’m there for you, moving boxes, talking to the tourists, anything; we’ve been seeing a lot of Russian tourists lately, and I don’t speak Russian, but still we manage to communicate. If you’ve got love in your heart, you must share it. If you’ve got hate in your heart, well….”



The love Eric has for his job and his town is returned. Several years in a row he was nominated for the town Public Service Award; he was also nominated for the prestigious Chamber of Commerce Community Service Award. One local admirer even composed a poem entitled Here’s to Eric, its opening lines “We’re proud of our Ville, We like when people say, ‘Your town is so clean. How do you keep it that way?’”



Lynn Wood owns Birdman Books and Coffee, one of Eric’s regular stops along with the library, Council on Aging, and tourist center. She says, “He comes in here every day exactly at 11 a.m. and always has a wisecrack; anyone in here is going to get spoken to and teased.” Lynn’s father adds that it is Eric’s persistence and consistency that is so admirable, especially since it is an effort for him just to walk. Retired horticulturist Walter Imahara and Assistant District Attorney Mike Hughes, Birdman regulars, express admiration for Eric’s work ethic and dependability, while realtor Becky Landry adds, “And he makes a good pie!” Besides entering the local pie-baking contest, Eric is a devoted patron of the library and a voracious reader; in the door pocket of his truck currently is Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.



As a year-round tourism destination with its National Register-listed downtown historic district and Main Street community, St. Francisville needs to look clean and attractive at all times, and Eric Schneider certainly makes a significant contribution toward that goal. Slow and steady, like the fabled tortoise that beats out the rushed hare every time, Eric contributes to his community through his stolid persistence and daily toil, spreading a little cheer and love along the way.

St. Francisville features a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.



The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups. A third-Saturday community marketplace fills Parker Park with homegrown arts and crafts.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

ST. FRANCISVILLE CELEBRATES ITS GLORIOUS GARDENS AND GROWING ART SCENE
By Anne Butler

The floral design workshop on Friday morning will take place on the picturesque grounds of Afton Villa Gardens. (Photo credit: Dr. Neil Odenwald)

In 1831 the Encyclopaedia Americana called St. Francisville and the surrounding District of Nueva Feliciana “the garden of Louisiana,” and always it was so. Across the verdant hills and well-watered forests Mother Nature spared no effort in strewing a wonderful wealth of wildflowers to brighten this garden spot long before the earliest settlers arrived. The first cultivated gardens were practical affairs of vegetables and herbs, with greenhouses to extend growing seasons to feed the early families as well as their livestock. Once these planter families prospered from cash crops of indigo, cotton and sugarcane, they could turn their attention from the pragmatic to the merely pleasing, clearing and terracing the rolling lawns, transplanting from the woodlands wild oak-leaf hydrangea and snowy dogwood, and importing from fledgling East Coast nurseries the azaleas and camellias to plant in patterned parterres of formal gardens inspired by foreign travels.



The annual Southern Garden Symposium in St. Francisville celebrates that great gardening tradition and fosters its continuation by convening horticulture enthusiasts for a weekend of demonstrations, lectures and tours through the area’s glorious antebellum gardens. This year’s 24th annual event, which planners promise will be one of the most informative and entertaining ever in its combination of prestigious speakers, historic surroundings and engaging social events, takes place Friday, October 12, and Saturday, October 13. Proceeds fund such projects as scholarships to LSU’s School of Landscape Architecture and garden enhancements at state historic sites.

The Speakers' Gala is an elegant highlight to the Symposium weekend.(Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

Subjects of Friday morning workshops include a demonstration of floral design presented in the ruins garden of Afton Villa by Lynette McDougald who was named Mississippi’s Floral Designer of the Year 2000; rain gardens and other sustainable landscaping presented at Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site by LSU landscape architecture professor D.G. “Buck” Abbey; the incorporation of edible plants into today’s landscape, presented at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall by Kyle Huffstickler, landscape coordinator for LSU’s LaHouse Home and Landscape Resource Center; and tree care presented at Wyoming Plantation by arborist Jim Culpeper. In the afternoon on Friday, several of those workshops will be repeated, plus a presentation at Grace Episcopal Church’s Jackson Hall by flower magazine editor Margot Shaw on the fearless use of color in gardens.



On Saturday Southern Garden Symposium programs at Hemingbough, feature lectures on “Time-Tested Treasures for Sophisticated Southern Spaces” by Heidi Sheesley, owner of wholesaler Treesearch Farms; “Martha Turnbull’s Rosedown Diaries” by Suzanne Turner, landscape architect and author who edited the diaries; “Integrating Art and Science in Landscape Design” by award-winning landscape architect Jeffrey Carbo; and “Welcome Home George Washington” by J. Dean Norton, historic Mount Vernon’s Director of Horticulture. Participants will be welcomed by Master of Proceedings Dr. Neil Odenwald, and social gatherings are the Friday evening Speakers’ Gala at Rosebank Plantation and the Saturday afternoon tea at Evergreenzine. For registration information, see www.southerngardensymposium.org.

Guests enjoy a workshop at Rosedown Plantation. (Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

The sheer beauty of the cultivated landscapes and the verdant wild woodlands in the St. Francisville area have inspired creative artists ever since John James Audubon painted a number of his famous bird studies while tutoring the young daughter of Oakley Plantation in 1821, and the arts scene is growing just as prolifically as the glorious gardens. The annual Yellow Leaf Arts Festival, this year Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., celebrates that rich tradition of artistic inspiration by filling St. Francisville’s downtown oak-shaded Parker Park with an incredible selection of music and artwork, with some 60 artists presenting, plus plenty of good food. To mark both the tenth anniversary of Yellow Leaf and the bicentennial of Louisiana statehood, there will be a special tribute to the area’s past artists both sung and unsung, and on Sunday author Danny Heitman discusses research for his book A Summer of Birds: John James Aubudon at Oakley House from 11 to 12:45, followed by New Orleans poet Mona Lisa Saloy hosting a poetry workshop and readings from her book Red Beans and Ricely Yours from 1 to 3 p.m. Music on Saturday includes The Acoustic Playboys at noon, the popular local group called The Fugitive Poets at 2, and a Songbird Reunion Jam at 4; at 7 just around the corner at Birdman Coffee and Books, Mark Raborn and Outside Passage perform. Sunday’s live music includes Burke Ingraffia at 3, and at 4 the debut of an exciting new girl band featuring Heather Feierabend, Jodi James and Becca Babin. Yellow Leaf Arts Festival is sponsored by Arts For All.

Wyoming Plantation will be the site for a workshop on caring for trees in the landscape. (Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

Fall also brings two of the St. Francisville area’s most popular events, the Halloween extravaganza and eerie ghost tours at The Myrtles Plantation, called America’s most haunted house (www.myrtlesplantation.com), and the Angola Rodeo at Louisiana State Penitentiary every Sunday in October. The arena grounds open at 9 a.m. for the inmate hobbycraft sales, inmate band performances and plenty of concession stands; rodeo starts at 2 with hair-raising events like the Grand Entry with mounted black-clad Angola Rough Riders circling the arena at breakneck speed, Bust Out, Bareback Riding, Wild Horse Race, Women’s Barrel Racing, Bull-Dogging, Buddy Pick-Up, Wild Cow Milking, Bull Riding, Convict Poker, and Guts and Glory culminating with inmates on foot trying to snag a chit tied between the horns of a rampaging Brahma bull. All contestants are inmates except the barrel racers, and an ambulance stands by to haul off the wounded. Tickets should be purchased in advance at www.angolaroadeo.com or by calling 225-655-2030, and visitors are cautioned to remember that this is a penal institution with very strict regulations that must be followed to the letter.



St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Shoppers browse the plant offerings on Saturday morning.(Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool fall weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups. The local Farmers’ Market is open mornings Thursdays and Saturdays, and a third-Saturday community marketplace fills Parker Park with homegrown arts and crafts as well.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including St. Francisville Main Street’s fun functions for children around Halloween in the National Register-listed downtown historic district).

ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA: PRESERVING ITS SENSE OF PLACE ON TAPE

By Anne Butler



St. Francisville, if you take the time to look, seems like a little Louisiana town that has it all, and in many ways it does. Its congenial mix of residential and commercial and governmental structures assures a lively presence downtown 24 hours daily, and when the shops and offices close for the evening, the bricked sidewalks come alive with joggers and dog-walkers and neighbors chatting with porch-swingers across tidy white picket fences. It has been called, without much exaggeration, the town that’s two miles long and two yards wide, for its National Register historic district straddles a high narrow ridge overlooking the Mississippi River, its location keeping it safe from floodwaters and also safe from inappropriate modern development for which there simply is no room.

Founded at the beginning of the 19th century, this little rivertown has always served as the commercial and cultural center of the surrounding plantation country, with the countryfolk loading into wagons and buggies on Saturdays to do their shopping and socializing in town, the churchgoers congregating on Sundays in the historic places of worship just as they do now. Even today, specially planned small-town festivities like the spring pilgrimage tour, the lively Christmas celebration, community art and crafts markets and farmers markets all draw folks into the historic district. Monuments around the courthouse square commemorate the unique history here, its early Anglo settlers establishing a little island of English culture in the midst of a sea of French and Creole and Acadian, hardy independent recipients of Spanish landgrants who overthrew their Spanish rulers in 1810 to form a short-lived republic of their own.

Visitors are enthralled with how well preserved the mostly 19th-century structures are and how unspoiled the surrounding Tunica Hills management areas and Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge remain, providing unlimited recreational opportunities and scenic vistas that have inspired creative artists ever since the days when that famous bird painter John James Audubon was spellbound by the beauties of this “garden spot of Louisiana,” where he painted dozens of his famous folios in 1821. Nearly every weekend, St. Francisville’s state historic sites provide living history demonstrations and reenactments showcasing life in those early years.

Like small businesses everywhere, St. Francisivlle’s little shops hope for an upswing in the economy, but most have proven to be remarkably resilient, an eclectic combo of quirky antiques emporiums, fine gift and clothing shops, furniture makers and artists’ galleries, plus restaurants serving up everything from ethnic Chinese and Mexican to downhome country and southern seafood. There’s even a coffeehouse that provides a gathering spot for the exchange of ideas and information and just plain ol’ gossip over fancy lattes and cappuccinos; around the corner a breakfast buffet offers such delicacies as Bananas Foster and there’s also a wine parlor that’s the ideal spot to watch the sun go down while rocking on the fanciful Victorian front porch.

St. Francisville’s visitors definitely should spend several days in this oasis of peace and quiet decompressing from the fast pace of urban life, and there are a number of inviting Bed & Breakfasts—historic townhouses, antebellum plantations, lakeside and golf resorts—as well as a couple of motels that can accommodate whole busloads of overnighters. The West Feliciana Historical Society, which for more than four decades has sponsored the spring Audubon Pilgrimage as not just a fundraiser for preservation projects but as a way to encourage local residents to more fully appreciate their own history, joins with the Tourist Commission to man the interesting little museum and visitor information center in town. St. Francisville is also a Main Street community, participating in the state and national programs designed to preserve and revitalize historic commercial corridors, and the longtime mayor and Main Street manager provide enthusiastic support and funding for building rehab and restoration, bricked sidewalks, pocket parks, information kiosks, public restrooms and a fine oak-shaded central park complete with Victorian bandstand.

After shopping and dining in St. Francisville, surrounding attractions beckon visitors. There are six spectacular plantations, several dating from the 1790s, and both 19th-century and contemporary gardens open for touring. More active visitors can hike through the rugged Tunica Hills woodlands along sandy creekbeds to a series of waterfalls or to the country’s largest bald cypress tree. These scenic areas are teeming with rare plants, birdlife and wildlife like the chipmunks found nowhere else in Louisiana, delighting photographers, nature lovers, and artists of all stripes. Right in the middle of these hills and bordered by the Mississippi River is the state’s maximum-security prison, notorious Angola, that has progressed from an unsavory early reputation as the country’s bloodiest penitentiary to present popularity as the most unlikely of tourist attractions, its museum filled with compelling exhibits and a thrilling prison rodeo called the Wildest Show in the South. Angola and the St. Francisville area have been discovered by Hollywood, and a number of movies have been filmed both in town and in the surrounding countryside.

Parish seat of West Feliciana, St. Francisville has a good small hospital, one of the best public school systems in the state, an extensive new sports park with ballfields and tennis courts and biking/hiking trails (“The Beast” is a real challenge!), a recently expanded highway system and the country’s longest cable-stayed bridge connecting the area with New Roads across the Mississippi River to the west. Quiet and safe, it is attracting retirees for the history and relaxed lifestyle, as well as young families enchanted by the small-town atmosphere and sense of community. Could there be more employment and housing opportunities? Sure, and the economic development director has a mandate to address those needs while ensuring preservation of significant historic sites and protecting the environment.

St. Francisville’s residents have a remarkable sense of place and community. Thanks to local writers and graphic artists and techno-whizzes, the area also has a remarkably inviting and diverse presence on the internet, making it seem that this is indeed a little town that has it all plus the means to share it. But what is missing, and what those involved in tourism would like to have, is a video to add to its online sites. Trouble is, with state fiscal cuts gouging deep holes in the tourism budget, there are no funds to pay a videographer, and that’s why St. Francisville is hoping a video class might take on the project as a learning tool for students, with guidance from the tourism professionals in town. Instructors, students or budding journalists wanting to gain experience and add such a project to their resumes should contact the West Feliciana Parish Tourist Commission or the St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-4224 or 225-635-3873.

For visitor information call those same phone numbers or visit online

www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

ST. FRANCISVILLE: VOLUNTEERS PITCH IN

By Anne Butler

On Saturday, February 9, 1907, St. Francisville’s little local newspaper, The True Democrat, carried the horrifying news: “The Julius Freyhan High School building burned to the ground last night. Fire caught most likely in the basement as the flames burst forth from the interior without warning about seven o’clock, and had gained such headway that it was impossible to make even an attempt to save the building. The efforts of the hose companies and of citizens generally were directed towards saving the adjacent buildings. It was a providential circumstance that there was no wind or very much more property would have been destroyed as the heart of the residence district was threatened.”

Half a century later, Greenwood Plantation near Weyanoke was set afire by a lightning strike in August of 1960. Its elderly occupants were saved, as were some fine possessions---the silver venison dish, a couple of Aubusson parlor chairs, a few Sevres porcelain vases. There was no parish-wide fire protection district at the time, and the old fifties-era fire truck that lumbered out from St. Francisville got stuck in the mud trying to pump water from the reflecting pond. Only the chimneys and columns were left of the glorious Greek Revival house.

At Afton Villa, the town fire crew did an exemplary job of putting out the fire with water pumped from the swimming pool, only to have it rekindle. The son-in-law fell off the steep roof of this fanciful French-Gothic villa, saving himself by catching onto a sturdy gutter, while the elderly father of the homeowner watched the flames from a cast-iron recliner on the lawn and promised his daughter that if she wanted him to, he would see that the house was rebuilt just as it had been (it never was). Huge sirens mounted on poles throughout St. Francisville had sounded the fire alarm, and many town residents rushed out to help; the town fire station was “manned” that night by Mrs. Hannah Wood in her long nightgown and robe, directing everyone to the scene of the fire. Massive beds and other pieces too heavy to move were lost, but volunteers managed to rescue many furnishings, even mantles detached from fireplaces by a cousin wielding a fire ax.

A similar fate would befall far too many other significant historic homes, most of them constructed of old dried cypress and thus highly combustible, even after horse-drawn fire wagons were replaced with motorized trucks, and indoor gas or electric-fueled kitchens replaced detached ones where fires continuously blazed in big open hearths.

The disruption of lives and livelihoods, the displacement of families, the heartbreaking loss of life and possessions and memories---without proper equipment and training, all of the desperate struggles of courageous volunteer firefighters and frantic townspeople were powerless to prevent these tragedies. In St. Francisville, everyone in town knew every detail of every fire, because the town’s first long-time fire chief, James M. Robinson, was also the owner/editor of The Democrat, and through comprehensive coverage of the far-too-frequent fires he made sure his readers understood the need for improved fire protection.

Robinson struggled to stretch his thin resources, both human and mechanical, to provide a modicum of protection throughout the parish as well as within the town proper. It was not until the late 1980’s that, at his urging, the tax-supported Fire District No. 1 of West Feliciana Parish was created, with Robinson overseeing the establishment of 8 district stations across the parish, ordering up-to-date equipment, appointing district chiefs and supervising training. With improved fire protection, parish residents saw a reduction in their insurance premiums, and today a new central administration and training center has provided increased opportunities for raising the level of professionalism as the parish-wide Fire District assumes an expanded role of not only firefighting but also emergency medical response, search and rescue, hazardous material response, and vehicle extrication to assist first responders of other agencies.

Inside town limits, funding has never been adequate for sufficient full-time paid firefighters. The chief of the St. Francisville Fire Department is its only full-time paid employee; there is one part-time employee, and about 25 volunteers. St. Francisville Fire Chief Tommy Robinson, who as the son of the late Fire Chief James Robinson practically grew up in the fire station, must rely on dedicated volunteers, and so does District Fire Chief James Wood.

Hats off to these volunteer firefighters who are willing to risk their lives battling blazes; all the funding in the world could not compensate these brave men and women who rush headlong into the smoke and flames to save lives and property. Sometimes, however, the time required for volunteer firefighters to leave other jobs in distant locations and race to the fire costs precious minutes, as was evidenced in the recent burning of an old commercial structure housing a gift shop and lounge right in the main intersection of St. Francisville at the only stoplight in town. The fortuitous presence of a crew of firefighters from a nearby town at the training facility in St. Francisville allowed immediate assistance by additional units, so that connecting structures were saved.

And just as concerned local citizenry had rushed to help when the town’s first central public school caught fire, just as townsfolk rushed out to salvage furnishings from burning plantations in the nearby countryside, so the residents of St. Francisville continued to respond to the need in a heartwarming expression of community. Riverboat passengers being bussed from the river landing to visit local attractions passed through this intersection just as the early-morning fire was raging, and they learned a valuable lesson in small-town life as they witnessed everyone in town rushing from their breakfast tables or from opening their businesses to hurry to the scene to help remove valuable antiques in an adjacent building from harm’s way while the trained firefighters battled the blaze.

The St. Francisville Fire Department and parish-wide Fire District have come a long way since the days of horse-drawn hose wagons and pumpers, but volunteers remain a valuable component in coping with any local tragedy. Those steamboat passengers, on their way to the state penitentiary at Angola where they anticipated seeing things that would curl their hair, instead had their hearts warmed by what they saw on the way through St. Francisville, things these tourists from around the country would rarely see except in a small southern town---that sense of community, of commitment and concern, of how one person’s tragedy is everybody’s tragedy. They saw how quickly news travels in a little country town, and how by the time the sorrowful tidings reach from one end of town to the other, there are little old ladies rushing up the front steps of the stricken home with consoling squash casseroles or hummingbird cakes, and helpful gentlemen pitching in to help with the chores, or, at a fire, carrying out the treasured silver venison dishes without interfering with the trained firemen fighting the flames.

As parish Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Tommy Boyett, himself a retired fire chief, was recently quoted in The Democrat as saying, “When something happens in this community, we have the unique ability to come together to address the issues. We help each other. This goes on in this parish every day, and it never ceases to amaze me.”

That’s St. Francisville, and besides basking in the warmth of community caring, visitors find there are still plenty of significant historic structures for touring; even Greenwood has been beautifully recreated, and the ruins of Afton Villa have been resurrected as a magnificent garden. There are also some special summertime events like the small-town Fourth of July fireworks and music at dark at the town ballfield, free and open to the public.

July in St. Francisville also features one of the area’s most popular indigenous events, the Feliciana Hummingbird Celebration July 27 and 28, as hummingbird biologists capture and band the tiny birds on Saturday at two private gardens in the Tunica Hills, preceded by a Friday evening wine and cheese garden stroll at Rosedown State Historic Site plus a talk by hummingbird enthusiast Carlyle Rogillio (for information, see www.audubonbirdfest.com or call 800-488-6502). The third-Saturday St. Francisville Community Market on July 21 fills oak-shaded Parker Park from 9 to 1 with music, crafts, baked goods and artworks. Audubon State Historic Site features special programs on July 8 (“In the Footsteps of Audubon”) and July 14 (“The Civil War Homefront 1862”).

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers weekend tours with numerous crape myrtle varieties putting on a spectacular show in July. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups. The local Farmers’ Market is open mornings Thursdays and Saturdays.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

SUMMER OF DRAMA IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA

By Anne Butler

When that great American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum brought his dramatic troupe to St. Francisville in 1838, he was at the height of an exuberant career exhibiting freaks and frauds, Fee-Gee Mermaids and Siamese twins, giants and midgets and everything in between, in various museums and theatrical settings; it was only fairly late in his life that he founded what would become the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.

His 1855 autobiography, The Life of P.T. Barnum written by Himself, gives an amusing account of a visit to St. Francisville, where a drunk trying to sneak into the show tent for free was denied admission and consequently took aim at Barnum with “a slung-shot.” Said Barnum with characteristic colorfulness, “The blow mashed my hat, and grazed the protuberance where phrenologists located the organ of caution.”

The rejected party returned with “a frightful gang of his half-drunken companions, each with a pistol, bludgeon, or other weapon. They seemed determined to assault me forthwith,” Barnum related. The showman begged the mayor and other respectable citizens present in the theatre for protection against the mob, but the mayor “declared his inability to afford it against such odds.” The rabble-rousing ringleader gave Barnum just one hour to load up his exhibits, strike the tent, and head on downriver on his steamboat. “He looked at his watch, I looked at the pistols and bludgeons, and I reckon that a big tent never came down with greater speed,” said Barnum.

Dramatic presentations receive a much more cordial reception in St. Francisville these days, and the summer of 2012 brings several fine opportunities for cultural enrichment as the Transitory Theatre stages four productions and The Day The War Stopped once again presents its moving drama recreating the single day in history that marked one of the Civil War’s most unusual occurrences.


It was a hot day in June of 1863, as the bloody Siege of Port Hudson just south of St. Francisville was pitting 30,000 Union troops against 6,800 weary Confederates, fighting over the all-important control of traffic on the Mississippi River. A mournful procession of Union naval officers struggled up the steep hill from the Mississippi River into St. Francisville, escorting a coffin beneath the white flag of truce. The guns of the USS Albatross, their federal gunboat anchored off Bayou Sara, were silent behind them. The procession was not an impressive one, certainly not an unusual event in the midst of a bloody war, and it would no doubt have escaped all notice but for one fact--this was the day the war stopped, if only for a few mournful moments.

This touching moment will be recreated the weekend of June 8, 9 and 10th. The commemorative events begin on Friday, June 8, at 7 p.m., with graveside histories in the peaceful oak-shaded cemetery at Grace Episcopal Church, where several participants in the original event lie buried---the grave of Union gunboat commander Hart, whose burial stopped the war and united fellow Masons in both blue and grey, is marked by a marble slab and monument “in loving tribute to the universality of Free Masonry,” while nearby lies W.W. Leake, local Masonic leader and Confederate cavalry officer who expedited Hart’s burial. An Open House and presentation of lodge history at the double-galleried Masonic Lodge just across Ferdinand St. from the graveyard follows at 8 p.m. Friday evening.


On Saturday, June 9, lunch is served at the Masonic Lodge from 11:30 to 12:30. Visitors will be pleasantly transported back in time during the afternoon by a concert of antebellum period music and graceful vintage dancing from 11:30 to 1:30 in Bishop Jackson Hall next to Grace Church. At 1:30 commences a moving dramatic presentation showing Commander Hart’s young wife in New York as she reads his last letter to their small son and then receives the terrible news of his death. This is followed by the burial of Hart, with re-enactors in the dignified rites clad in Civil War uniforms accurate down to the last button and worn brogan.

On Saturday evening from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Oakley Plantation (Audubon State Historic Site), costumed dancers will perform stylish dances popular during the Civil War period, and Oakley House opens from 6 to 8 p.m. for touching presentations of what life was like in the area as husbands and sons prepared to go off to war and wives prepared for the grim reality of a changing world. From 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 10, Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site presents a program on Civil War medical techniques and their all-too-often conclusion, period burial customs.


Somewhat livelier dramatic opportunities will be available when the St. Francisville Transitory Theatre returns after a four-year respite to continue its mission of expanding the community cultural experience with “passionately creative theatre.” The SFTT began in 2003 as an Eagle Scout project as creative young James Lanius undertook the staggering task of presenting The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) under the live oaks of the local public park on a pair of joined trailers, admission being a donation to the food bank. Subsequent years saw productions not only in St. Francisville but also in New Orleans and New York.


Now the SFTT returns to its origins in a continuation of its core philosophy to focus on community needs while creatively utilizing non-conventional spaces, its repertoire challenging the oft-tame connotations of so-called community theatre. This summer’s ambitious program of dramatic presentations, in addition to acting and theatre arts classes, include a musical called The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, La Concierge Solitaire by Matthew Morris and Andrew Farrier, and an SFTT New Play Festival.

The St. Francisville Transitory Theatre is a not-for-profit organization partnered with the local Arts For All, and community support for the productions is essential. Scripts and sets, costumes and performance space, programs and lighting equipment…everything costs money, and pledges from the public are solicited, with donors rewarded according to generosity with anything from “a big hug” to theatre season subscriptions and coveted private dinners with the artistic and executive director! This is a tremendous opportunity for aspiring local thespians as well as seasoned visiting professionals, and a great opportunity for audiences as well.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers garden events on weekends. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including the Farmers’ Markets Thursdays and Saturdays, plus the Community Markets on third Saturdays) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.daythewarstopped.com, or www.sftheatre.net.

Mustard Green Festival

MUSTARD GREEN QUEEN’S MEALS MARK THE MILESTONES OF LIFE IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
By Anne Butler
Photos by Henry Cancienne 

Every little town has one, that dependably generous soul who never says no and thus may be found laboring behind the scenes over a hot stove or flaming grill at every fundraiser, every church dinner, every charitable event. St. Francisville has over the years been fortunate enough to have had a number of these unsung heroes, and one of them is finally getting her due.

For nearly half a century, St. Francisvillians have marked the milestones of life---the summer vacation Bible schools and high school graduations, the engagements and weddings, the baby showers and births, the illnesses and finally the inevitable deaths---over Sue Powell’s delectable dishes. The fundraisers and church socials, the pilgrimage luncheons and potluck suppers, the celebrations of life and the mourning of passings could hardly be observed without Miss Sue’s cakes or casseroles to enhance the joy and ease the pain. Somehow the whole world looked a little better over a heaping bowl of Miss Sue’s famous gumbo or her incredible Italian cream cake, her roast with rice and gravy or her homemade jellies or her lemon icebox pie.

The effervescent Sue Powell spent years working in the guidance counselors’ office at the local high school. Longtime counselor Ms. Dianne Williams recalls that Miss Sue knew all the students and parents, and she treated each one with love and respect. “She was the life of the party,” said Ms. Williams, “and she could help a child, work with office materials and talk on the phone all at the same time. She loved to cook and coordinate school social activities. She had more recipes than anyone I knew and she’s one of the best cooks I’ve ever seen. The faculty loved her and she loved them. She brought laughter, compassion and a genuine sense of love to West Feliciana High School. Mrs. Sue was ‘Mama’ to all of us. A thousand words are not enough to describe one of the most humble and friendliest human beings I’ve ever know.”

If the bounties of her kitchen spread a little cheer, that was enough for Sue Powell; she never asked for more, never coveted recognition. But when a new festival came to town, another one of those homegrown frolics celebrating the things St. Francisville is famous for, like its birds or its historic plantations and gardens or its local artists, and when there was a contest to see who was the best mustard green cook of them all, well, Miss Sue could hardly be expected to pass up the challenge. After all, she was an old Mississippi country girl who’d spent her entire married life in St. Francisville, where cold-resistant hardy mustard greens graced many a dinner table throughout the winter months, usually accompanied by a baked sweet potato and pone of iron-skillet cornbread to soak up that good ol’ pot likker.

Miss Sue knew you didn’t need any fancy recipe to cook mustard greens to perfection, just a slab of salt pork and a long, slow simmer. “Put ‘em on and let ‘em go; you gotta cook ‘em for a long time,” as her daughter Tootie describes her mama’s secret method. There was plenty of competition, including a couple of upstart wannabees like the regional magazine publisher and one local realtor decked out in real greens, plus some stiff judging by the likes of C.C. Lockwood and Smiley Anders, but not only did Miss Sue win the World Champion Mustard Green Cooking Contest, she was also crowned Mustard Green Queen for having raised the most contributions for the local food bank, over $1000. The only male contestant (in the cooking contest, not the queen’s) was gracious enough to retire from the field. And so, resplendent in denim overalls and a sparkling tiara, Sue Powell, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and looking far younger than her 75 years, reigned supreme over the first official Feliciana Green Festival sponsored by the local Rotary Club.

At last one of St. Francisville’s unsung heroes finally got her due. While Sue Powell loves to travel and has been all over the world, from Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong, from Hawaii to Belgium, her happiest moments are when she is stirring that pot and cooking something soothing to the soul for her friends and neighbors in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Of course she knows everybody in town; on her last birthday Miss Sue received a grand total of 207 cards! Daughter Tootie says, “Anytime anybody wants anything cooked, she can’t say no.” What a blessing she is to the community, she and all the others like her in every little community, whose culinary contributions mark the milestones of life and make the living and dying more bearable.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers spring tours weekends March through May. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups. And those looking for mustard greens and other fresh produce can visit the local Farmers’ Market Thursday and Saturdays.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

Generals and Bridge

APPROACH TO NEW AUDUBON BRIDGE BETWEEN ST. FRANCISVILLE AND NEW ROADS SALUTES TWO GENERALS
by Anne Butler

John J. Auduburn Bridge

The historic little towns of St. Francisville and New Roads have been separated over the years by many factors: cultural and linguistic differences, landscape and crop differences, and even by the mighty Mississippi River. New Roads was French, flat, sugarcane fields. St. Francisville was traditionally Anglo, hilly, with cotton the main cash crop of the 19th century.
And yet, over the years, the two communities have been inextricably bound together as well, beginning in the late 1800s when Capuchin monks from flood-prone Catholic Pointe Coupee had to cross the river to the high bluffs of St. Francisville to bury their dead. Now a beautiful new bridge, the country’s longest cable-stayed structure, connects the two communities across the waters of the Mississippi, and the bridge approach avenues have been named in commemoration of something else the two towns have in common---native sons who valiantly served their country in the wars of different generations and rose to the highest rank of their chosen branch of service as Commandants of the US Marine Corps.
The west approach to the bridge has been named by the state Department of Transportation and Development the General John A. LeJeune Memorial Approach. Born in 1867 in Pointe Coupee, LeJeune graduated from LSU and the US Naval Academy. During the Spanish-American War he commanded the Marine Guard on the USS Cincinnati and USS Massachusetts. As he rose through the ranks, he served all over the world, from Norfolk to Panama, from Washington DC to the Philippines, from Guantanamo Bay to Vera Cruz in Mexico.

General John A. LeJeune

By the outbreak of World War I, LeJeune was a brigadier general, in command of Marine divisions overseas. He would be the first Marine officer to hold an army divisional command when he led the famous Second Division (Army); after the armistice, he led his division in the march into Germany. In 1919 he was appointed commanding general of the Marine barracks in Quantico, Virginia, and became the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1920. After two terms he retired to serve as superintendent of Virginia Military Institute. General LeJeune, an active-duty Marine for more than forty years, was called “the greatest of all Leathernecks,” and when he died in 1942, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was the recipient of many military honors recognizing his distinguished service to his country, and Camp LeJeune in North Carolina bears his name.
The bridge approach on the St. Francisville (east) side of the river salutes native son General Robert Hilliard Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. When General Barrow died at age 86 in 2008, the New York Times said he “combined Southern courtliness, fierce devotion to Marine tradition and courage reflected in dozens of wars.” During the course of his military career, he received the Navy Cross for service in Korea and the Army Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam, both second only to the Medal of Honor.
Born in 1922, Barrow was raised on his family plantation, historic Rosale, in West Feliciana Parish, and attended LSU, enlisting in the Marine Corps in March 1942. After attending OCS and being commissioned a second lieutenant in 1943, he was deployed to China and led an American team fighting with Chinese guerrillas operating extensively in enemy-occupied territory behind Japanese lines. As a rifle company commander in the Korean War he was called the most outstanding company commander of the war, and during Vietnam he commanded the Ninth Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, again being recognized as the war’s finest regimental commander.

General Robert H. Barrow

After seven tours of duty in the Far East, in 1979 General Barrow became Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he was instrumental in implementing much-needed reforms in recruiting and training. He also expanded the Marine role in the military’s new rapid response strategy. When he retired from the service in 1983, Barrow returned to his beloved home near St. Francisville, and when he died, he opted for burial not in Arlington National Cemetery but in the peaceful oak-shaded cemetery surrounding historic Grace Episcopal Church, which his family had attended for some five generations.
And today as the new Audubon Bridge links the two historic communities on either side of the Mississippi River, so the bridge approach avenues mark yet another commonality between the two towns in recognizing the tradition of distinguished military service in the careers of two native sons, one from the east side of the river and one from the west, who rose to the same high rank and post in serving their country across the generations.
Having taken the place of a longtime ferry that was becoming increasingly unreliable, the bridge expedites traffic flow across the river and provides faster access to popular special events like the Angola Prison Rodeo, an annual event that always draws big crowds of visitors to the St. Francisville area in April; this year’s spring edition is April 21 and 22nd. From the time the mounted black-clad Angola Rough Riders race at break-neck speed into the arena, flags streaming and hooves flying, visitors are on the edges of their seats through events pitting inmates against pro-stock Brahma bulls and wild-eyed bucking broncos. Ladies’ barrel racing is the only non-inmate event in what is called the longest running prison rodeo, begin in the 1960s.

On top of Audubon Bridge

Crowd favorites are the events unique to Angola, including the crowd-pleasing "Guts and Glory", an arena full of inmates on foot trying to remove a $100 chit tied between the horns of the meanest Brahma bull around. Rodeo events begin at 2 p.m., but the grounds open at 9 a.m. for a huge arts and crafts sale showcasing inmate talent in hobbycraft like jewelry, hand-tooled leather, paintings and woodwork both large and small. Inmate bands perform throughout the day, and a large number of concession stands offer a variety of food and drink, with the stands providing shaded seating for more than 10,000 cheering spectators. Tickets should be purchased in advance (online at www.angolarodeo.com).
Visitors should allow time to tour the fascinating prison museum just outside the front entrance gates to learn more about the history of this enormous maximum-security penitentiary. It should be noted that there are specific regulations with which visitors must comply when entering prison grounds; no food, drink, cell phones or cameras are allowed through the rodeo entrance gate, and on prison property no weapons, ammunition, alcohol or drugs are permitted; purses and bags will be searched and all vehicles must be locked when unoccupied.
St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers spring tours weekends March through May. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Audubon Bridge Tower

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.
For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.