Background
Age of Mechanization
Overview
It is an indisputable fact “that the face of Louisiana changed dramatically between the antebellum years and the eve of World War II. The broad, mainly technological changes during that time affected the look of the landscape, the way people lived and worked, and not least, the architecture. [Fricker, Jonathan. "The Coming of Mechanization," in Poesche, Jessie and Bacot, Barabara SoRelle, editors. Louisiana Buildings 1720-1940: The Historic American Buildings Survey.]” Utilitarian issues gave impetus to the design and construction of many of the buildings of the time period.
When the steamboat came to Louisiana in 1812, machine technology became a driving force for change in the state. After the Civil War, railroad construction moved into many remote places and opened up these areas to settlement and other developments, such as the great Louisiana lumber boom. The age of the automobile arrived in the early twentieth century and brought about many changes. Each of the technological innovations left its unique architectural legacy.
Because there were but a few steamboat-related structures at the time, the era left the fewest recognizable standing buildings. Since most river commerce went through New Orleans, a large warehouse district developed there to accommodate the trade. A fairly good segment of the early New Orleans Warehouse District is preserved. The City of New Orleans required that commodities bought and sold on the wharves be moved from the river levee inside of a week of arrival, so much warehousing space was needed. A typical warehouse of the 1830s and 1840s was vaguely Greek Revival with two stories and wide entry doors at street level. Bay spacing (to accommodate large wagons) was regular; the roofline sometimes featured a full brick entablature.
Captain Henry Miller Shreve, for whom Shreveport was named, commanded
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which cleared the Red River of the 180-mile-long
debris raft that had clogged the river channel for hundreds of years.
Shreve also put his mind to solving the problem of early steamboats trying
to go upstream easily and efficiently. He tried more powerful engines
that had a degree of success and he developed the revolutionary idea that
“the steamboat should rest on rather than in
the water, like a steamship.” [Kniffen, Fred B. Louisiana--Its
Land and People, p. 145.]The 1830s saw the first railroads in Louisiana. Initially they were feeders for the river steamboats. However, the great railroad building boom in Louisiana came in the late 1800's.
Depots in small towns were generally of generic features and unadorned; however, depots in large towns and cities often possessed some rather distinctive architectural features. The Arcadia (in Bienville Parish) railroad depot was typical of small-town depots. Its freight area consisted of a loading platform with exposed inside roof trusses. The passenger area consisted of a ticket office and separate waiting rooms for blacks and whites. A board-and-batten siding exterior and a wide skirting roof held up by plain struts made up the outside. It has a decoratively shingled gable on each end, a holdover from the Victorian Queen Anne Revival architectural style. Depots in the larger towns and cities exhibited a variety of architectural styles. The Natchitoches depot (built in 1926) of the Texas and Pacific Railroad “takes its cue from the Italian Renaissance, and it might be described as an Italian villa in miniature.” [Fricker, "The Coming of Mechanization," in Poesche and Bacot, Louisiana Buildings 1720-1940: The Historic American Buildings Survey.]
The town of Arcadia in Bienville Parish was incorporated in 1855 and was
a bustling stagecoach stop and community before the Civil War. The Vicksburg,
Shreveport and Pacific Railroad built some miles south of the town in
1883, resulting in a type of town migration that produced a “new”
town of Arcadia along the railroad. Industrial lumbering came into the state about 1890. Large-capacity sawmills were set up and operated all day (24 hours), every day the year round. Two different methods of operation in lumbering developed—one for cypress and hardwoods in the swamp areas and another for the pine in the flatwoods and hills. Pullboats and narrow-gauge railroads were used in cypress logging (depending on the area) to transport logs to the mill. Sawmills evolved from use of water-powered saws to circular saws to bandsaws. Pine lumbering used water downstream drives and railroads to deliver logs.
By the 1890s lumbering in the state had become big business. In the year 1914 the state was number one in the country in lumber production. By 1925 the peak period was over; most mills had left; and millions of timberland acres were left denuded as landscape.
Cutting for commercial pulpwood began in Louisiana near Bogalusa in 1917. Conversion of the pulpwood into paper was done by the Bogalusa Paper Company, a Great Southern Lumber Company subsidiary.
Henry E. Hardtner, a Louisiana lumberman, earned the name “Father
of Forestry and Forest Conservation in the South” because of his
efforts in reforestation of cutover timber land, planned timber cutting,
and protection of growing timber land. By 1954 Louisiana forests had “turned
the corner,” and were actually “outgrowing the cut.” Tree
planting and growth was exceeding tree cut. Historic properties linked directly to industrialized lumber production include sawmills, company towns, mill workers’ neighborhoods, company-built facilities (schools, churches, etc.), and commissaries. The Crowell Sawmill in southern Rapides Parish illustrated the idea of “form following function” to the letter. It was strictly a work building with no concession to aesthetic ideas.
For a time the Crowell Sawmill in Longleaf “operated on steam power
generated by burning sawdust. An elaborate system of conduits with internal
chain conveyors transported sawdust beneath the principal floor to the
two boiler buildings, which were near the north end of the mill.”
The Great Southern Lumber Company constructed in Bogalusa most probably the grandest company-built house in the state for William Henry Sullivan, its vice president. The house has the look of a villa. It was far removed in style, form, and cost from the simple company houses of average mill workers.
In 1901 on farmland near Jennings an oil gusher was struck. By 1902 Jennings was an established oil field. New discoveries and fields developed to the east. In 1906 Caddo Parish had its first production well. North Louisiana was in the oil business, too.
“For a long time, natural gas was largely a wasted by-product of
oil production. Then, in 1917, a process was perfected for the conversion
of gas to carbon black, a substance necessary in making tires, ink, carbon
paper, electric insulators, and other articles. The great Monroe gas field,
discovered in 1916, came into full use. With the building and perfecting
of pipelines, gas could be transported north to be used for domestic and
industrial purposes.” [Kniffen, Louisiana--Its Land and People,
p. 167.] Only a few structures survive to illuminate the early period of the Louisiana oil industry’s growth and development. The only permanent oil industrial facilities were refineries. Technological changes required that old equipment be replaced with new, thus leaving little or no original equipment. Wealth generated by the early oil boom translated into stylish commercial buildings and prosperous new suburbs in boom areas. The Shreveport Fairfield Historic District is an example of the latter. Many of its dwellings are large, elaborately designed specimens of then popular architectural styles.
“The rice industry has had a deep and lasting influence on Louisiana.” The southwestern Louisiana parishes of Acadia, Calcaiseu, Cameron, Lafayette, Vermilion, St. Martin, and Iberia, and the central Louisiana parish of St. Landry, have been most affected. Rice in this area caused an economic boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Several buildings, including rice mills, warehouses, residences, and other commercial structures, directly related to the early rice boom are remaining in this area of the state. The Crowley National Register Historic District is the home of some of these buildings. One of the focuses of the Abbeville commercial district is the two-story Romanesque Revival style Bank of Abbeville.
The automobile changed Louisiana as it did the nation and the world. The built environment reflected the reality of the automobile. The motel is probably the most interesting element of roadside architecture. Other buildings included gas stations, diners, auto showrooms, and various tourist attractions.
The motel industry began in the mid-to-late 1920s with the appearance of tourist cabins or courts. Various styles were used in construction with the bungalow cottage as the most popular. A typical cottage-like tourist cabin court was built in St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish.
Some of the names of the early tourist courts included Wigwam Village,
Tumble Inn, U Pop Inn, and Kozy Kottages. Diners and cafes appeared all along the highways. Some were built to look like railroad cars; others, like chuck wagons, coffee pots, and hot dogs.
Gas stations soon popped up everywhere. Louisiana’s service stations were generally in the low-key Mission Revival or in a streamlined Art Moderne style.
Memorable examples of the automobile showrooms and dealerships in Louisiana are the Wray-Dickinson Building located in Shreveport and the Packard dealership located in New Orleans.
“The term ‘motel,’ which came to dominate the auto hospitality
industry, first appeared as ‘Mo-tel’ in 1925.” [Fricker,
Jonathan, "Early Motels Our Heritage of 'Automobility,'" Preservation
in Print, November, 1996.]