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| I entered Raceland. The building above is old.It may at first look new but it isn't. It is the Raceland Elementary School. It's just been fixed up. A work in progress. I crossed the street to read this historical marker. |
| I found pictures of the old town. You have to CHECK THIS OUT. |
| Raceland has two bridges. I thought I remembered this one. No, I remembered the one below. |
| It was part of our Houma to New Orleans route on Old US 90. What a great road. |
| Remember, Old US 90 left New US 90 back at Gibson [the famous intersection]where La.182, Old 90, went south along Bayou Black to Houma. This is La.182, use to be US 90, as it comes from Houma headed to New Orleans. If you need directions, just write. |
| Nostalgia now hijacks this ride report. I had to go to the old sugarcane mill. It was also a landmark and the first mill I remember seeing. We moved in 1954 from Shreveport, north Louisiana, to Houma, south Louisiana. That ranks with one of the great cultural transitions available to man or woman. Being a child, I easily acclimated. My next door neightbors had 13 children to play with. My parents, especially my father, loved the change. He was an adventurer and he had been set in the middle of a life experience. They loved to eat and the availability of all that is offered here was a culinary heaven. I remember picking up stuffed crabs in Des Allemands. I remember mountains of boiled shrimp on newpapered tables being consumed under a long tent at company picnics. The smell was delicious. These Texans and North Louisianians were having a heck of a good time working down here. They were learning to shed the reserve of their homes and to lesse le bon ton roulet. |
| The rain remained in the background. |
| Grocery ready refined sugar must have been made here. |
| Established in 1892. |
| A baggasse mountain. The walls in our house were made of this stuff. It insulated not only cold but noise. We had a cistern for water. It had bugs in it. I got w--ms and had to be de-w--med in Raceland. I looked for the clinic. I think I saw it. It is now a nursing home. Wouldn't that be a life's round trip. |
| Above is the fine old house on the mill property. |
| Above is more like what we lived in. No air-conditioning. We got our first TV in 1955. We could pick up WDSU in New Orleans. We bought the TV at Kirshman's Furniture Store in downtown NO. . I remember the salesman hooking it up to an antenna. Anyone know: What day it is? |
| Now the mill produces "raw" sugar? Yes it will always be the first one I remember. |
| Below is a vision out of my past. Old 90 is the road to the right. Wow. |
| The list of Louisiana Sugar Mills is growing very short. |