Hello,
Came across your site and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I am from Marksville and really enjoyed the Avoyelles stuff. It brings back memories of early "train spotting" as a young kid.
[I think he is speaking of ride I did tracing the Texas&Pacific to Mansura, Louisiana]
You should have continued to Marksville where there is still evidence of the old grade as well as creosote timbers from the old trestle over Coulee Des Grues. A point of interest [is] the original depot in Marksville [which] became a feed & seed store and was later torn down in the mid 80's. It was at the end of the line where, as a kid, I remember one or two box cars parked behind the building which delivered feeds and such. We sometimes were brave enough to explore the interior of the cars when the doors were open.
The old depot building from Cottonport was moved to Marksville long after the line was abandoned and became a fruit and vegetable stand called "Blink's." Now it is a shop that sells concrete yard decorations and such.
I also remember, every once and a while, being able to see the old MP engines pushing one or two cars down the line whenever my mother shopped at Dixie Dandy near the line.
At Mansura, the line actually passed through the front parking lot of a Texaco station on the corner of Hwy 107 & Hwy 1. [I believe that station is now a tire store with a neat mural on it, my guess]
Other vague memories include going to "Simm's Oil" in Mansura with my uncle to buy drums of motor oil and hydraulic fluid for his farm in Hamburg. There would be one or two tank cars parked in the yard. This was an Exxon products distributor.
Also, we would go to Paul Wall Farm supply, which you indicate as the "Ag Industry" on your map. Besides the farm supply, there was the attached grain elevator. Behind that area was Roy Pecan Company which was beside the tracks. The pecan company burned to the ground in the early eighties with owner Shep Roy inside the building.
There were sometimes hopper cars parked beside Paul Wall's and a box car or two beside the pecan company.
Speaking of Hamburg, I would spend summers at my uncles farm. I would always run to the corner of the front yard whenever the KCS trains ran along the L&A line to "count" the cars and guess if there was or not a caboose at the end of the train.
There was a siding which went to the O.P. Berridon Feeds & Seeds business. I clearly remember going to visit my grandmother from Marksville while catching a ride with my cousin Randy. He was then a reporter for the Marksville Weekly News.
I'm not sure of the year, but there was a major derailment at the spur near the feed business. Traffic on Hwy 1 was stopped [for] nearly a mile away, but flames could be seen hundreds of feet in the air. Randy quickly grabbed his camera from the back seat and took off running along the highway to get photos for the newspaper. I think some of his photos were even used in the Baton Rouge paper reporting on the story.
Enough rambling. One last bit of info. I remember as an early teen, taking a Jeep ride with my uncle Mayeaux from Hamburg along to Big Bend and then going through woods roads all the way to the site of the old town of Naples on the Atchafalaya. There were concrete blocks where I imagine turn buckles secured the barges for the ferry. I didn't own a camera then so I have no photo's. I'd like to repeat that journey. I'm not sure if there are locked gates now, but my family owns property along the river just south of Naples and I may have access that way.
Also, I remember "frog hunting" with my brother along Bayou Courville and passing under an old trestle from the "tram" line as it was referred to by locals.
Then he wrote back:
One correction I just recalled. The Marksville Feed and Seed Store burned down in the early 80's..... There is a narrow one lane bridge a few hundred yards upstream called the Sarto Lane bridge which has been preserved and placed on the National Register. There is a visitors' center in the old Big Bend post office across the Hwy from it. My uncle, Carlos Mayeaux was instrumental in getting the bridge preserved.
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Thanks Terry
If interested in Terry's Uncle's achievement, I have done a report visiting Big Bend, the museum and bridge location. The link is listed below. It has a very good collection of pictures in the store. I suggest a visit. It is the best two dollar tour in Louisiana and the ride there is scenic. The guide is very knowledgeable about the whole area and loves to tell it all. That area has a lot of varied history. Plan a morning there. The host is the guy that hooked me up with the train book that has led to so many of my recent adventures.
Here is a link to the Big Bend story, Going Around the Bend . I thought I'd done one when C.Alphonso had come but I remember I was too busy keeping him out of trouble to shoot any pictures. But, he insisted I take his picture as the store keeper. There would be no robbers at that store. Guaranteed. C.Al can get a little crazy.
Here's the article he was referring to: The Avoyelles Branch