Preface: The Oaklawn Bridge

One of the bets I place is that if I keep offering up bait, fish will bite. I go out and take a few pictures and write a few lines, sometimes purposely including vague or slightly questionable information in the hopes that an authority will chime in and add some priceless obscure piece to the historical puzzle. My old buddy from the blurry, and sometimes too clear past, offered the following after realizing I had a little railroad interest. I had never realized that Michael had connections to this area, or forgot. I always figured his family was from New Orleans. I guess the website has worked better than I ever suspected it would. Here's Michael's offering about his uncle, the Railroader and Bridge Tender.

First, I'll show you a map. The area is called Oaklawn. It is roughly at the apex of Irish Bend, the loop in Bayou Teche between Franklin and Baldwin. Click it to enlarge.




Michael's note:

My godfather/uncle (husband of my mother's sister) and his son were both life long railroad men. The son was an office clerk, but his father was a real linin' track guy, with the picks, hammers, spikes, rails, rocks and ... In fact, my godfather got a sliver of rock in his eye, lost the eye and the railroad gave him a job operating the turn bridge across the Teche near Oaklawn. Wish I had pictures of that. Some of my best childhood memories were visiting and staying out there. The railroad ran to the bayou through the cane fields on a high berm. When it crossed the bayou, it was quite high over it. The bridge stayed open & it was his job to row out to it in a boat and close it when the train came by.

The old house was down off the berm and there was an elevated wooden walkway from the house to the tracks. In fact the house itself was quite elevated....I guess to give room for the bayou to flood. They had electricity, but no running water. There was an outhouse which hung out over the bayou, and inside one empty room was a "chamber pot" for when it was too cold or raining. I remember being up on the tracks as they extended over the bayou, looking down over the water, and watching the fish swimming in the shallows near the house. On the other side of the tracks the fields began again, and I could almost always see water moccasins on logs or mud along the bayou.

He had a pony and buggy, chickens, and a big old hog, which they butchered. He shot the thing in the head with a pistol, then cut it up. I can still remember the family being involved.................the women in the kitchen making sausage...........the men outside boiling cracklin. A lot of French being spoken, country music being played on the radio or 78rpm on the record player, ..............a world I loved to visit, but knew I couldn't live full time.

ME: wow! I'm headed out there and recon an approach today.
The ride is done.

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