"Exploring Louisiana's Enchanted Backroads" (HWY 1 North)
Written: Jun 29 '00 (Updated Aug 05 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fascinating, Unique Cultural Experience, Few Tourists,
Cons: None at all
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Louisiana |
The history, exploration, and settlement of Louisiana is a story of water routes. Rivers, bayous, lakes, and swamps were the “roads and highways” of Native American Louisiana. When the first French explorers arrived, they quickly realized that water routes provided far more flexibility, speed, and convenience than any form of overland travel. Louisiana’s first cities were built at strategic points on important water routes. New Orleans at the portage between Lake Ponchartrain and the Mississippi River and Nachitoches at the northernmost navigable point of the Red River. During the nineteenth century both these cities became prosperous because of the steamboat.
Land routes, with the exception of the El Camino Real The Spanish Royal Road that once stretched from New Orleans to San Antonio, Texas (and from there to Mexico City), were not important in Louisiana until the twentieth century. With the introduction of the automobile and the discovery of oil, roads and highways became a necessity. The earliest roads were built alongside the water routes used by Native Americans and French explorers.
The charm and unique character of small two lane highways is undeniable. My wife and I spent three years covering the entire length of Highway One (one section at a time). We met many friendly, helpful and fascinating people, ate in some incredible “one of a kind” restaurants, visited many educational and interesting historic sites, and learned to love and respect the unique culture and people of Louisiana. If you want to truly experience Louisiana, and all it has to offer, spend a day or week driving all or part of Louisiana’s “Main Street” for an adventure you’ll never forget.
Louisiana Highway One runs from the forested hills in the northwest corner of the state (where the borders of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas meet) four hundred and thirty six miles to the flat horizonless expanse of coastal marsh and bayou on the Gulf of Mexico at Grand Isle. Highway One is Louisiana’s great mother road and links Shreveport and the northwest (settled almost exclusively by Protestant English/Scots/Irish pioneer stock) with the Catholic Creole, Cajun, and Spanish cultures of south Louisiana. Louisiana didn’t have a statewide network of highways until 1930, roads prior to the great depression were built and maintained by each parish. The Huey P. Long administration used depression era federal highway aid money to combine many existing roads, build bridges, and construct new roadway to provide a statewide network of roads and highways.
Starting in the far Northwestern corner of Louisiana, Highway One moves south until it encounters Caddo Lake. Here at Oil City, the Louisiana petroleum boom started in 1906. There is an exact replica of the very first derrick, three buildings from the boomtown era, and the Caddo-Pine Island Oil & Historical Museum. The museum is located in the old Kansas City Southern Railroad Depot. Exhibits include Native American Relics, old oil field equipment, photographs, and a collection of pearls found in mussels from Caddo Lake. Photographers, watch for the city park on the shores of Caddo Lake. Bald Cypress, Spanish Moss and the vast expanse of the lake make for some truly stunning images, if you time your arrival for sunset, the Cypress trees will be nicely silhouetted against a colorful sky that is beautifully reflected in the still waters of Caddo Lake.
Shreveport came into being because of a 180 mile logjam that blocked navigation of the Red River above Nachitoches. The logjam, in place for several hundred years, was cleared (under contract to the Federal Government) by Captain Henry Shreve in 1839. This allowed the territory above Nachitoches to be settled and opened to commerce. The Federal Government bought 1,000,000 acres of land from the resident Caddo Indians (for $80,000.00, stipulating that the Caddo leave Louisiana immediately, never to return) and sold the site of present day Shreveport to Captain Shreve.
Shreveport is home to the Louisiana State Museum, 3015 Greenwood Rd. (M-F 9:00am to 4:30pm Free) which houses the collection of Native American artifacts unearthed at Poverty Point. Poverty Point was the largest and most important pre-historic Native American settlement in the Mississippi Valley. If you are interested in Native American history and artifacts, this collection is not to be missed. While in Shreveport visit the Pioneer Heritage Center on the campus of LSU Shreveport. Many authentic plantation structures have been moved to this site. The Webb & Webb Plantation Commissary serves as the Visitors Center. Docents dressed in pioneer costumes demonstrate various crafts and skills from churning butter to making bricks. In addition to the plantation structures, there is a restored “dogtrot” double cabin, a blacksmith shop, and a “horrifying” collection of 1830’s dental/surgical instruments.
Eighty miles south of Shreveport is the oldest town in the Louisiana Purchase territory. Nachitoches (pronounced “KNACK-uh-dish”) was founded as a French trading post in 1714, primarily to keep an eye on the Spanish in nearby Texas. Nachitoches grew to be a prosperous river town, the northernmost place that steamboats could reach. When the Red River changed course Nachitoches was left in relative isolation.
Nachitoches is the best preserved French/Spanish Colonial Era town in Louisiana. The old buildings and wrought iron balconies along Front Street give a very good idea of what New Orleans must have looked like in the early years of the nineteenth century. There is a replica of the original French fort, and other historic buildings are located on Cane River Lake, right off, Front Street. Be sure to try the Natchitoches’ Meat Pies and Red Beans and Rice with Sausage at Lasyone’s Meat Pie Kitchen, 622 Second St. (318) 352-3353. The restaurant was a favorite of the “Steel Magnolias” cast when the movie was filmed here. The Cane River Crème Pie is rich and sinfully fattening, and the Bread Pudding is the best outside New Orleans. Don’t miss Kaffie-Frederick General Merchandise, 758 Front St. (318) 352-2525 a “real” General Store, opened in 1863. The selection of “old timey” kitchen gadgets, cast iron pots and pans, and specialized cookware is unequaled anywhere. If you like to cook, plan on spending some money shopping at Kaffie-Frederick. Nachitoches is famous for the city’s Christmas “Festival of Lights” (Dec/Jan) when the banks of the Cane River Lake are festooned with 300,000 colored lights (the Church Street Bridge covered with lights and reflected in the still waters of the Lake will make any serious photographer drool as he/she sets up the tripod)
Nearby are the Cane River Plantations, the most famous of which is Melrose, started in 1794 by a free woman of color, Marie Therese Coincoin. Melrose grew to be the most important Plantation on Cane River. Be sure to see the Clementine Hunter (known in Louisiana as the black Grandma Moses) Murals in the “Africa House”. While in the neighborhood, visit the Isle Brevelle Creole Community (don’t miss the 1806 church and cemetery) This small close knit village has maintained it’s Creole heritage and identity for almost two hundred years.
The “Bayou Folk” Museum in Cloutierville (CLOO-chur-ville). Has an eclectic collection of local artifacts, and is housed in the former home of Kate Chopin, whose novel “The Awakening” is thought by many to have been the first shot in the war for Women’s Liberation. Be sure to ask the staff at the “Bayou Folk” Museum to tell you about Elvis (the museum’s canine mascot) and how he learned respect and caution after a run in with a wily alligator. While in Cloutierville be sure to visit the Little Eva Plantation (318) 379-2382, legend has it that this plantation was the setting for “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti slavery novel. Both Little Eva Plantation and the “Bayou Folk” Museum are right on Highway One.
This concludes “Exploring Louisiana’s Enchanted Backroads"(HWY 1 North) This is the first part of a three part series called "LA HWY ONE" A Journey in Three Stages I would like to thank the helpful folks at the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and Judi Smith at the Pelican State Library for their enthusiastic help with some of the historical information about Highway One. Please see “Traveling Back in Time"(HWY 1 Central) and “Into the Cajun Heartland", (HWY 1 South) to continue the journey.
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
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Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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