LULING TOWN
HISTORY
Luling began as St. Denis, named as such by a railroad owner, and
locally as Old Town or Cajun Town before being known as Gassenville. Luling was dominated for years by a series
of sugar plantations; their names still part of local geography - from Lone
Star and Davis to Ellington and Ashton.
Sugarhouse Road is next to the old Ellington Plantation site (now
commonly known as Monsanto Park, though it has officially been Bicentennial
Park since 1976).
The town's present name comes from Florenz Albrecht Luling, a
cotton merchant who was born February 20, 1828, in Bremen, Germany. He was the son of Albrecht Florens Luling
and Friedrike Hartlaub. He married Marie
Georgina Hermann in New Orleans, and they had four children - Adele, Anna, Carl,
and Hermann.
Francois Mayronne, who had bought it from the State of Louisiana on
May 9, 1855, for $115,000, built Ellington Plantation in the late 1850s to the
design of the younger Charles Gallier.
Florenz Luling, meanwhile, commissioned James Gallier Jr. and Richard
Esterbrook to design his "villa" in New Orleans in 1861. It was completed in 1865, but sold in 1871
to the Louisiana Jockey Club for $60,000 as a clubhouse, and later subdivided
into apartments. The site, at 1436 Leda
Court, was designated a historical landmark in 1977 by the Historic District
Landmark commission in New Orleans.
After the Civil War, Ellington was acquired by James Gallier of New
Orleans, then Louis Gustave McQueen and then, on august 6, 1868, by Florenz
Luling for $40,500. The 15-by-75-arpent
plantation sale also included "dwelling houses, Negro Cabins, steam
engine, machinery, apparatus, agricultural implements and livestock of every
kind."
F.A. Luling sold the plantation to Richard Viterbo, "a
resident of Paris, France," on May 1, 1882, for $37,000, after the
accidental drowning of two of his children.
He moved to Mobile, Alabama and he died on May 21, 1906, in London,
England, at a daughter's home.
Ellington Plantation was also reportedly the ancestral home of film
actress, Cora Witherspoon, who co-starred with W.C. Fields in "The Bank
Dick." It was later acquired by
John Barkley, a former advisor to President Herbert Hoover, and then by Louis
A. Blouin. However, the 1926 arson of
the sugarhouse spelled the decline of the plantation's fortune's, and Blouin
sold the plantation afterward. Later
owners rented out the property and one, Mr. Gadeux, developed a seedless orange
there, which grew well but the first crop froze and he moved away.
Ellington was later sold to Ellington Realty Company and later to
Lion Oil. Tragically for local
historians, the house was torn down in the early 1960s to save on insurance
costs and liability. The old porch
banisters went to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church for use as an alter rail
and the old organ was kept for years by Jules Hymel. March 8, 1884 saw the
Davis Crevasse split the levee at 1 a.m., at the site of Davis Plantation down
river from Lone Star. The crevasse left
its permanent scar on the landscape, with a crevasse gully still carved and
Davis Pond, left by the flood.
Immediately down river is the Davis Freshwater Diversion Project, now
under construction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Population of Luling in 1887, when the first post office was
established, was between 600 and 700.
By 1894, the population was up to 1,000. The first postmaster was J.B.Friedman.
The 1902, the first mission chapel of what later became St. Anthony
of Padua Catholic Church was established.
In 1926, the church relocated to Post and Ellington streets. That
building is now a warehouse for the St. Charles School System. St Anthony's became a full-fledged parish
church in 1961 and, in 1969; the present church on Angus Drive at Sugarhouse
road was blessed.
In November 1938, two square blocks of riverfront in Luling was
reclaimed by the Mississippi River, and a new levee built by the Lafourche
Levee District. Several homes and
businesses were lost forever, though, and the Luling-Hahnville bank was razed
and its vaults moved. For years
afterward, its foundation slab could be seen behind the levee near the old
Ferry Inn.
Lion Oil Company began construction of its plant in 1952 and was
completed in 1954. The plant became
known as "The Barton Plant," after company founder and board
chairman, Colonel T.H. Barton. In
September 1955, Lion Oil merged with Monsanto, and remained a division of
Monsanto Chemical until 1972, when Monsanto divested itself of Lion Oil and
completely took over.
On October 20, 1976, the Luling ferry disaster killed 78 people
when the "George Prince" collided with a Norwegian tanker. A monument to the disaster is now in front
of the St. John the Baptist Paris courthouse at Edgard, but no marker is in St.
Charles Parish. The reason one is in
St. John is because of the majority of the dead were from that area. Most were on their way to work at the
industries located on the west bank of St. Charles Parish.
Residential development began swelling the boundaries of Luling
after World War II, with Luling Heights, Lakewood Park and Davis Heights east
of Monsanto, and then making the jump across U.S. highway 90 to Mimosa Park,
Lakewood West and Willowdale Country Club Estates. A massive 2,000 home development on the old Ashton Plantation
site in the shadow of the Hale Boggs Bridge is due to begin construction soon.
The Hale Boggs Bridge opened in 1984, and forms part of Interstate
310, which connects Interstate 10 with U.S. Highway 90 at Boutte, and completed
in 1993. Its construction is the first
of its kind and continues to present problems with up-keep.
One observer of the Luling town history, as his family has been a
part of it for so long, is Sidney Gassen Sr. "My daddy's brother was an
overseer at Ashton Plantation,' he related.
Gassen, 81, is a native of the town as was his father and grandfather
(at least). The old Gassen house, which once stood near the railroad tracks,
had been built in the 1820s but was torn down in the 1950s. Sidney's parents were John Gassen, born in
1883, and Evelina Jourdan from New Orleans.
"Her parents died when she was small and she was raised in a
convent by nuns," he recalled. His
mother was of French and Spanish ancestry and his father was of German
ancestry.
John Gassen ran a store at Paul Maillard and River roads, and had
the first gas pump in town, besides running a foot ferry service between
Hahnville and Norco.
When the levee was moved in 1938, the Gassen Store was relocated
near the railroad tracks, where it still stands as the former "Papa
Johns" Busalacci Pool Hall.
"Man, they lost some land here!" Sidney remembered of the
move, which took place when he was a teenager.
One of a family of 10 children, his chores included milking each
morning and evening. Every child had
their job to do, inspired to greater effort by their tireless father. "He
never stopped! I don't know how he did it."
Gassen graduated from Hahnville High School in 1938, and was soon
at Celotex in Marrero as an electrician, where he worked 40 years, starting off
at 54 cents an hour. "I made god
money then!" Not long after he got
that job, family pressure was on to fix him up. Finally, his brother-in-law introduced him to his niece in
Bogalusa - Aline Dubuisson.
"When I met Aline, that was it!" he marveled. "She had that natural
beauty." However, he was 20 and
she was 15 years old, so her father sent her to live with relatives in New York
for a year, hoping their love would cool down.
"We were writing all the time," he recalled. Once she returned, they married right
away. They marked their 59th
wedding anniversary on October 13.
Aline worked at Monsanto for 20 years, and at the Gassens'
restaurant, the Goody booth, a popular teen-ager hangout in the 1960s. (Now Frank and Tina's). She has worked for the St. Charles Sheriff's
Office, now as a receptionist in Special services Division, for 12 years.
The couple share a love of family, dancing and travel. They ruled as King and Queen of the Krewe of
Lul in 1986, and they enjoy their five grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren. Tragically, their
only child, Sidney Jr., died in 1995 of cancer at the age of 53.
However, Sidney Gassen Sr. sees the family legacy carry on, and he
still loves Aline's smile.