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Old 12-02-2022, 12:33 PM
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Cypress Knee Cypress Knee is offline
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Default Rochelle - The Old Home Place

Since I was a small child growing up in Louisiana, I remember the adults talking about “Rochelle”. All the tales of Rochelle were engaging, as if it were some mystical, magical place to be. There were stories of Camelot, Shangri La, Oz, and Valhalla. Then there was Rochelle, which seemed like a very real place to a ten-year old.

I have since been to Rochelle, Louisiana. There is nothing there but empty stands of pine trees, a dilapidated “Old Highway 165” running through the woods, and some scattered headstones in a long-forgotten overgrown cemetery.

By the late 1880’s there was a small settlement at the confluence of Dugdemona Bayou and Castor Creek simple called “Head of Little River”. In 1895 Henry Rochelle established a lumber business there, and the town soon bore his name.

The lumber business went through a series of owners before the Tremont Lumber Company bought the lumber mills and rail lines in 1907 and built a “Company” town. My great-grandfather was a supervisor at the mill. His sons worked for Tremont as millwrights and timber cruisers. Around 1930 my grandfather was lured to a competing mill at Hodge in north Louisiana. The real intent was that the Hodge mill knew that he was an outstanding baseball player. He had been recruited as a ringer on the company's baseball team and not necessarily due to any of his “outstanding” skills as a millworker.

In the 1940’s Tremont Lumber had begun to close down the Rochelle operation. Allen Adams and his offspring moved to central Louisiana to seek other employment while Valrus was already established at the mill in Hodge.

Looking back on my own youth, visiting grandparents was always a tremendously exciting time. There was always some sort of road trip to prepare for. There were always cousins to play with and aunts and uncles who would spoil all the kids except for their own!

My father and his sister probably felt the same way as children. I imagine that they rode in a Ford Model A. Grandma and Grandpa Smith were thirty-five miles south of Hodge on the other side of Winnfield. At the old home place you would make a left turn and immediately were on the way to Grandma and Grandpa Adams home in Rochelle fifteen miles later.

No wonder it made such an impression on my father, his sister, and all their cousins. A road trip to Rochelle meant visiting two sets of grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

In retrospect, Rochelle itself was not a very special place. However, the ability to re-connect with the extended family always meant that a trip to Rochelle would be a very special event.

I never hear “Rochelle” anymore with the next generation. I imagine that my brother, my sister, and myself are the last of the descendants of our great grandfather to have dreamed about discovering Rochelle once again. But then, who knows? Perhaps there are children and grandchildren who have their own image of a “Rochelle” somewhere deep in their hearts – and it is my home..
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File Type: jpg Rochelle Crossroad.jpg (29.1 KB, 67 views)
File Type: png Rochelle Cemetery.png (957.0 KB, 66 views)
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Last edited by Cypress Knee; 12-02-2022 at 12:56 PM.
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Old 12-02-2022, 12:43 PM
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Rochelle (Original author is unknown, believed to be a “Mrs. James Alexander”)

Creator: United States Works Progress Administration of Louisiana. 1941.
Rochelle, Louisiana. A lumber town owned by Tremont Lumber Company.

Located on US Highway 165 in Grant Parish thirty-five miles north of Alexandria on turn #12.

Rochelle, with a population of six hundred and twenty is not an incorporated town. It is situated in the extreme north-east corner of the parish – the town limits north, east and west forming the parish lines. The main line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Tremont and Gulf Railroad run through it. It is owned solely by and is under control of the Tremont Lumber Company. Every building in it belongs to the Tremont Lumber Company and with the exception of the schoolteachers and the postmaster no one but the employees of the mill are allowed to live here or are allowed to rent houses. Tremont owns the ice plant and the only store and drug store.

Rochelle has no crime problem, no serious lawbreaking since any resident found undesirable is promptly moved off the property of the company which means the town of Rochelle. No saloons or gambling halls are allowed.

The early history indicates that in the late 1880s or early 1890s there was a small settlement known only as “Head of Little River” since at that time boats came up Little River as far as what is now Rochelle but no further. A man by the name of Stiles owned a small mill and shipped lumber on these boats.

In 1895 or thereabouts, Henry Rochelle of Arkansas bought out Mr. Stiles and put a more modern mill continuing to ship lumber by boat. From “Rochelle’s Hill” the locality gradually came to be called Rochelle.

Between 1895 and 1906 the mill or mills were owned in succession by Henry Rochelle, Whitaker and Whitaker, W. M. Gunton Lumber Company, Lord and Bushnell and Louisiana Lumber Company. In 1906 The Tremont Lumber Company acquired the property and has owned it since that time. The company is owned by the Joyce family of Chicago of Peggy Hopkins Joyce fame. It is said that a motor car used on the Fremont and Gulf Railroad was formerly a limousine owned by Peggy.

Little River ceased to be navigable shortly after the beginning of this century (1900s) and after Tremont took over the property they built the Tremont and Gulf Railroad. This road has its beginning at Tremont, Louisiana, and was originally intended to go to the Gulf but was never extended beyond Rochelle.

In 1915 – 1916 the Louisiana offices of the company were moved to Rochelle from Winnfield.

The approximate value of the town of Rochelle is $1,000,000.00. There is a payroll of $400,000.00. It furnishes employment to between 275 and 300 men and has a yearly capacity of 1,000,000 feet.

The two hundred families in Rochelle pay only a very nominal rent. Water and electricity are furnished by the company which also keeps up the property including the homes. Natural gas is available for those who desire it at a reasonable figure. There are three modern churches – Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic; a standard Jr. High School and a hotel.

During the depression the company managed to run sufficiently to keep its employees going, and while it did not operate full time Tremont did not suspend operations.

Points of interest near Rochelle include Hubb Lake which according to tradition has no bottom. Tradition also records that in the 1880’s a band of Highwaymen robbed the Natchez Bank and fled over the East-West road running from Natchez to San Antonio and passing close to Rochelle. Hotly pursued they dropped the treasure in the middle of Hubb Lake later attempting to recover it but failed because the lake was bottomless.

(Notes: The pic of the Tremont Lumber Company in full operation. Also a pic of the Tremont Hotel. If you are wondering what a small mill town is doing with such a large hotel, consider it to be a barracks or dormitory for the single men with a common dining area. The workforce is about 50/50 black and white. I am sure the town was segregated back then, but don't know anything about the living arrangements. The Hubb Lake story is a variation of an older story that the Natchez Indians tried to hide gold and other valuables in there.)
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Tremont Lumber Co.jpg (37.5 KB, 66 views)
File Type: jpg Tremont Hotel.jpg (24.7 KB, 66 views)
File Type: jpg Tremont Workers.jpg (13.7 KB, 68 views)
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Last edited by Cypress Knee; 12-03-2022 at 09:54 AM.
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Old 12-03-2022, 08:11 AM
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Great story and history lesson. Always sad to see the final resting place of people so badly neglected. There was an old cemetery discovered here several years ago when some trees and brush were cleared to make way for some road improvements. Some volunteers went in and cleaned it up and now the township maintains it.
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Old 12-03-2022, 08:50 AM
catndahats catndahats is offline
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Great story, Cypress.
Reminds me of Paradise by John Prine.
My dad told recollections of his childhood visiting grandparents/family in Southern Illinois...almost improbable tales by today's standards. Keep the history alive by writing it down for future generations.
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Old 12-03-2022, 09:08 AM
Murphy Slaw Murphy Slaw is offline
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As a young man in 1982, I relocated to Lake Charles, Louisiana and promptly found employment on a demolition crew tearing down much of the downtown historic buildings that was later discovered to have been involved in an insurance scam.

We pulled full cut 2x8 old growth pine beams out of those buildings that were 30 feet long. It took 3 healthy young men to carry 1 of them.

I've never seen such lumber before or since.

It surely could have come from your mill.
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Old 12-03-2022, 09:23 AM
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This is great! Thanks for sharing.
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Old 12-03-2022, 10:15 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw View Post

We pulled full cut 2x8 old growth pine beams out of those buildings that were 30 feet long. It took 3 healthy young men to carry 1 of them.

I've never seen such lumber before or since.

It surely could have come from your mill.
At its peak the Rochelle mill produced 50 million board feet a year. As they cleared the old growth virgin timber, it became clear that Tremont would have to acquire new equipment to handle the newer and much smaller secondary growth logs.

Consequently a new mill was built at Joyce, LA, about twenty miles northwest of Rochelle.

So it is possible that those thirty foot 2 x 8 came from Rochelle.

An interesting side note - when the mill operations were moved to Joyce the rail lines were sold to the Illinois Central.
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