LUTCHER TOWN HISTORY

Lutcher's story begins to at least 1785.� Back in those days, Jean Baptiste Ory, Pierre Chenet and Etienne Reine owned three plantations at the present site of Lutcher.�� Of the three, only Reine's home still stands.

Ory was the son on a German catholic family who immigrated to Maryland and moved to Louisiana in 1769.� In 1784, acquired the 40 arpents deep, with 11 and one half arpents frontage.� Price for the site was 42 head of cattle.� Following Ory's death, Fimin Reynaud eventually obtained the plantation and, when he finally began selling off plots of land, Longview Town was born.

Next to Ory's site was the property of Pierre Chenet.� In the history of St. James Parish, Chenet looms large, as it was his trading with the local Indians, which led to the development of Perique tobacco.� Once more widely cultivated in present day Lutcher, Paulina and even in parts of St John the Baptist Parish, Perique is now only cultivated on a single farm in Grand point.

Chenet, born in New Orleans in 1758, grew up in St. John Parish, eventually married there and bought a plantation.� However in 1797, he moved to the present Lutcher area, his house once standing across Lutcher Avenue from the present St. James historical Society Museum.� Eventually his plantation became the site of the Lutcher Moore Cypress Lumber Company.� Etienne Reine III, a 1752 native of New Orleans arrived in present day Lutcher and established his home where now stands The woods and Belle Rue subdivisions.

In 1870 while the South was still reeling from the impact of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, and Ohio man named Captain John Diebert came to Louisiana, scouting out timber tracts.� He eventually found vast tracts of cypress in St. James Parish and reported his findings to Henry J. Lutcher and G. Dedell More of Orange, Texas.� In 1891 the Lutcher and Moor Cypress Lumber Company burst forth onto the scene, clear cutting thousands of acres of virgin cypress forest and founding the company town of Lutcher.� The company was incorporated on July 11, 1891.� Diebert was on the Board of directors as treasurer, the reward for his valuable find.

The town quickly grew.� Just as in the company's mill town near Orange, Texas, the streets were named Cypress, Texas and Louisiana.� They were laid out and lined with company housing.� Inside of a year the New Orleans press lauded the fine operation of the mill by its 300 employees.�

The Lutcher Post Office was quickly established in September 1891 with john Faxon the first postmaster, housed in Tompkins Pharmacy, a still active business in 1999.� Within a few years, Lutcher boasted 4500 people and it housed the second largest cypress mill in the world.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church was established in 1903, the same year that a several days' strike shut down the mill.� The strike was called to establish a 10-hour workday for employees in a mill, which worked around the clock.� The strike was settled peaceably, but it was several years before the work schedule changed.

In July 1910, a fire, which began at Anthony Tortorich's store, spread and devastated part of old Lutcher.� Plenty of manpower was available but no resources were at hand.� The experience led citizens to pres for chartering of a town.� The first town council meeting was held June 4, 1912, with Emile J. Netter the first mayor.� The board of aldermen included Aloysius Bourgeois, John Emile Chenet, P.V. Horta, Lawrence Nobile, and Pascalis Pollet.� Town clerk was Leonce Bourgeois.

The "good ole days" of Lutcher might be considered 1891 to 1930, the life span of the lumber company.� In those days, small businesses pumped life into the community and some of those businesses have still endured the test of time, far outlasting Lutcher and Moore.� Among those are Tompkins' Pharmacy, established in 1891, and Nobile's Restaurant, which dates back to 1893.� the Lutcher United Methodist Church, established in 1898, was the first non-black Protestant church in the River Parishes.� Mobile's started out as a men only barroom , with Dr. Anthony Nobile's office on the second floor.� For 90 years, it endured as such and only recently became the first class restaurant it is today.� Lutcher High school was built in 1906 on the site of the present day St. James Parish Hospital.� The next school, a Landmark in the River Parishes, was built in 1933.� However only a few years ago the St. James School Board replaced it with the current school.

In the early days of the mill, payroll was accomplished by sending the company safe by train to New Orleans, there to be filled with cash and returned to the mill each and every week.� Finally, the St. James Bank and Trust Company established its first bank in a wooden building in 1903 while their landmark two story building was built next door to Tompkins' Pharmacy.� When the bank finally moved out of that building into its present site, it became the Lutcher Town Hall.� The building burned down at last in 1970.� Ironically, the little wooden building which first� housed the bank still stands, attached to the rear of Tomphins' Pharmacy.� In those ";good ole days,"� the town rattled and shook with the 13 dummy trains hauling timber from the forests to the mill. Electricity was provided for a few businesses and fewer residents from the Louisiana Artificial Ice and Light Company, which would blink the power five minutes before "lights Out" at 10 PM, then cut power for the rest of the night.� By 1930, Lutcher and Moore's dream mill had depleted the cypress forest and shut down. Coupled with the Great Depression, which had begun the year before, many families left for greener pastures. Many of the 120 company houses were sold off for $100 each and many of these still remain in the area.� Netter died in 1941 in Alexandria.

When the mill died, many people left the area.� Others found work at colonial Sugar in nearby Gramercy.� Many others, though, lived off the land and the fur trapping industry was the biggest around.� Places like Alvin Woods' moss gin, which lasted until 1955, kept many people working until places like Kaiser Aluminum opened in 1958.�

Though he is not old enough to remember the "good ole days" of Lutcher, Charlie Duhe's knowledge of the old town rivals most memories of those who do.� Duhe, 65, was born and raised in Lutcher, one of 12 children of William and Irma Daigle Duhe. His parents moved to Lutcher from Reserve to set up Duhe's Bakery in the 1920's.� He graduated in 1953 from Lutcher High School, the older school that was replaced a few years ago amid cries of protest.� He attended Southeastern Louisiana University for a few years on a track scholarship, but the pull of good money working in industry ended his college career.� He married Lillian Martin Duhe in 1955 and they've seen six children and 18 grandchildren so far.�

Everything was a slowed down pace, Duhe said of the old days. There were few cars, most people walking everywhere they needed to go.� With everything at hand, few ever had to leave town.� Today the town remains St. James Parish's largest. And Lutcher a town to tough to die, endures and thrives.