Grand Isle, Louisiana, before Hurricane Ida

Grand Isle, Louisiana (from Google maps)

We will temporarily interrupt the trek through the Kingdon of Lo (Mustang, Nepal) for a few photographs of Grand Isle, Louisiana, in a cheerful time before it was torn up and inundated by Hurricane Ida. According to the Weather Channel (Aug. 29, 2021), "Ida officially made landfall at 11:55 a.m. CDT near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, about 18 miles southwest of Grand Isle and about 60 miles south of New Orleans. Maximum sustained winds were 150 mph, making Ida a high-end Category 4." Any category 4 hurricane in the northern Gulf of Mexico is serious trouble because of the shallow continental shelf. This lets lets the winds push a surge of water ahead of the storm. Louisiana is so flat, the bayss and marshy islands are inundated. 

Grand Isle is the only inhabited barrier island along the southern Louisiana coast. The island is at the mouth of Barataria Bay, where it merges into the Gulf of Mexico. The island has been repeatedly hit by hurricanes during its era of recorded history, when storm surges rushed over the most of the island and destroyed building. I will not try to list the many storms here. 

Plantations existed on Grand Isle before the Civil War. The war effectively ended agricultural activity. Developers began to advertise the island as a resort in the 1870s, and steamship service soon brought vacationers from New Orleans. Meyer-Arendt (1985) in the Annals of Tourism Research (Vol. 12.pp.449-465) provides a readable and interesting summary of the island's development over the last two centuries. 

Grand Isle did have a short-lived gilded age. The New Orleans, Fort Jackson and Grand Isle Railroad carried sophisticated vacationers most of the way to the island. But the opulent Ocean Club hotel, built in 1891-1892, only survived one year before an immense hurricane with 175 mph winds overwashed the island and destroyed most of the buildings. The storm killed an estimated 1,600 along the Gulf Coast, and Grand Isle's gilded age came to an abrupt and terminal end. 

1953 aerial photograph of Grand Isle near Coulon Rigaud Lane (US Army Corps of Engineers Beach Erosion Board archives, Vicksburg, MS)

Grand Isle has been an erosion problem for the State of Louisiana and the US Army Corps of Engineers for decades. The Beach Erosion Board conducted one of its earliest studies of the island's erosion problem in 1937. The Corps also presented a Beach Erosion Control Study to Congress in 1955 (84/I H. Doc. 132-). The 1953 photograph above was one of the aerial photographs used for this study. Many other studies have followed. Mid-century, some agency built cross-shore groins to try to stabilize the ocean shore (see the 1953 photograph). These were rebuilt numerous times. Since then, the Corps of Engineers has built segmented detached (meaning offshore) breakwaters along the entire Gulf side of the island. They have added beach sand from offshore sand deposits numerous times. 

We do not yet know what Hurricane Ida has destroyed on Grand Isle. Late August 31, the Jefferson Parish president reported that 100 percent of the properties suffered damage. 

Long-term, the bigger issue might be relative sea level. The southern Louisiana coast suffers from the most extreme relative sea level rise in the United States (meaning the combination of water elevation rise and land sinking). Will Grand Isle be viable 10, 20, or 50 years from now?

By the way, there is a terrible 2019 movie titled Grand Isle, starring Nicholas Cage.

Morning at the Blue Dolphin Inn & Cottages is a sunny delight (in good weather).

Lunch or dinner at the Starfish Restaurant, with an old-fashioned ambience and friendly service. Chairs and tables from the 1960s? Very nice. But this building is at ground level and vulnerable. 

Cottage on Medical Lane, Grand Isle (Hasselblad 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

Cottage on Chighizola Avenue

Cottage on Nacari Lane

On any barrier island, look for the Oak forest and you know you are in the most stable part of the island, the part that has withstood erosion and serious overwashing for decades or centuries. Only a small section of Grand Isle shows this stability, and only a few of the early 20th century cottages remain. Most of the other houses are newer and raised on pilings. You also see mobile homes up on piles, many rather nasty. Even the Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Church is a modern structure up on concrete piles. 

Over the next few weeks, surveys and news reports will reveal the extent of damage from Ida. Rural Louisiana will be forgotten as the news concentrates on New Orleans, but people live and suffer in rural areas, too.

Long-term readers may remember some of my photographs of Hurricane Katrina damage in New Orleans: 

• Lower Ninth Ward
• Holy Cross District

Hurricane Katrina struck exactly 16 years ago. What an amazing coincidence. And recall, the botched federal response to Katrina's damage and flooding largely destroyed President Bush's presidency. War in Iraq was another factor.

The Abandoned Thomastown School of Mound, Louisiana

Thomastown School (Panatomic-X film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens)

Thomastown School (Tri-X film, Tachihara 4×5" camera, 135mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar S-II lens)

A forlorn school sits on an overgrown lot near the junction of US 80 (the former Dixie Overland Highway) and Mound Road (also shown on Google Maps and Thomastown Road). I first saw this abandoned school when I biked on Mound Road as a way to bypass some of the traffic on US 80. Well, maybe it is not technically abandoned. A farmer must own the buildings because he stores hay rolls on the the former parking lot and parks tractors and machinery in the former gymnasium. But the classrooms are a mess and totally neglected.

According to one website, the Thomastown High School was an all-black establishment that closed in 2001.

The 1-storey section on the north was mid-1960s mass production with a brick exterior. The bricks are in good condition, but the roof is leaking. The large windows show that this building did not have air conditioning when built.

The south section was 2-storey, and when I first saw the building from the road, I thought this might be an abandoned mid-century motel. The wide overhangs on both floors were designed to provide some shade to the windows (an architectural feature that more homes should use). The panels on the overhangs were asbestos sheets; many have fallen they crunch underfoot when you walk next to the building.

Classroom on west side (Kodak Gold 100 film, Hasselblad 501 CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens, minor fill flash on ceiling)

Central hallway with cheap but intact cinderblock walls

Needless to say, the interior is a mess of debris, with dripping roof panels, standing water, and chipping paint.

This has been our short tour of a semi-abandoned school. I have no information about its fate. If it is privately-owned now, it may sit here moldering for decades.

The color photographs are from 120-size Kodak Gold 100 film. The film was long expired but had been stored in a freezer. I exposed it at EI=64 in my Hasselblad 501CM camera, all frames tripod-mounted.

Expired Color Film Treasure: Kodak Gold 100 120-size (Abandoned Films 07)

 

Dear Readers, this is the last (for now) article in my series on discontinued types of camera film ("Films from the Dead").

Kodak's Gold color negative films (for color prints) were famous for consistent and reliable results under various conditions. No matter what a customer did with their roll, a good laboratory could usually recover a decent image. Kodak manufactured the 35mm versions in USA, Mexico, China, and possibly other countries. I was familiar with Gold 100, 200, and 400 in 135mm size for 35mm cameras but had not seen other sizes. Therefore, I was surprised to see this roll of 120 size 100 in the freezer of a former friend who passed away a few years ago. 

This roll expired in 2000, so I wondered if it would work, but it had been frozen all these years. I loaded it in my Hasselblad and took photographs in the area under various light conditions. I exposed it at EI=64, on the assumption that it had lost some sensitivity over the years. 

I sent the roll to Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, to develop in C-41 chemicals. Dwayne's has been in business for decades, and some of you old-timers may remember that this was the very last laboratory on earth to process Kodachrome slides. 

I scanned the frames with a Minolta Scan-Multi medium format film scanner operated with Silverfast Ai software. The Gold 100 profile was not quite right and the automatic scan produced very green images. It is very possible that the film had shifted despite its long storage in the freezer. But I corrected the color balance using the grey dropper tool, and the resulting scans look pretty good for 20-year-old film. Please click any frame to see it at 1600 pixels wide. All comments welcome.

Examples

Fixer-upper cars, Old US 80 east of Vicksburg (80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, 1/4 ƒ/16))

Junk yard, Old US 80 east of Vicksburg, Mississippi (80mm lens)

Abandoned school, Thomastown Road, Mound, Louisiana

Abandoned school, Thomastown Road, Mound, Louisiana

Abandoned school, Thomastown Road, Mound, Louisiana

I came across this old school one day while I was biking on a new route in Louisiana. No one is ever around when I have been there and therefore have not been able to ask about the school's history. Was this one of those separate but equal establishments erected quickly in the 1960s or 1970s? Was it closed because of asbestos? The panels from the roof eaves are asbestos, and they crunch underfoot when you walk near the building.

Workshop at the Mississippi River Basin Model, Buddy Butts Park, Jackson, Mississippi

Closed shop, 1016 Raymond Road, Jackson, Mississippi (80mm lens with polarizer)

Lessons of the Discontinued Film Series

What have I learned from these experiments using discontinued film stocks? I think the main lesson is if the film has been frozen or at least kept cool, it may be perfectly usable:

1. Low speed black and white film should be totally usable. Try exposing with ⅔ or a full stop more exposure compared to the original ISO. There may be more fog. As you saw from my 1960s GAF Versapan film, it provided excellent negatives at EI=64, and it was 50 years old! Northeast Photographic developed it in Xtol.
2. Kodak's Panatomic-X seems to be ageless. I now allow ⅔ of a stop more exposure (EI=20). 
3. High speed film, like Tri-X, may be marginal. But, I have been using 1989 expiration Tri-X 4×5" sheets, and they looks pretty good, although there is some base fog. However, I know the boxes have been frozen all these years.
4. 20-year-old expired Fuji NPS160 C41 film in 120 size (color print): no issue at all. 
5. 1990s Kodak Ektar 25 (120 and 135): Some rolls were ruined, some were OK. They all had color shifts. I think its time is gone and Ektar 25 is too old now. 
6. Kodak BW400CN black and white C41film looks fine, but it is a bit grainy.
7. Kodak Verichrome Pan black and white film appears to be amazingly durable.

If any of you readers have experience with expired film, please add notes to the comments. Thank you for reading along.

On the Dixie Overland Highway, Historic US 80 - Girard and Start, Louisiana (LA-06)

We continue on our exploration westward on historic US 80 through rural Louisiana.

4554 US 80 Girard, Louisiana (Fuji X-E1 digital file, 18mm ƒ/2 lens)

Girard is an unincorporated community in Richland Parish, Louisiana, on the west side of the Boeuf River. Originally, the town could ship merchandise to other markets via the river. But starting in the mid-1800s (before the Civil War), the railroad became the prime means of shipping agricultural products. This is now solely a bedroom community, with houses and a few stores.

The Easy Pickins' Thrifty Sales store is in a nicely-restored old grocery at 5144 US 80. It was open and quite interesting. I asked about old cameras, but the owner only had some old Kodak box cameras and Polaroids. There are always Polaroid cameras at these types of stores, but the lack of most types of instant film makes them useless today.

US 80, view east, Start, Louisiana

Start is another unincorporated community along US 80, this one in Richland Parish, Louisiana. It consists of an unused (?) gin, big gas station, and some homes. 

The buildings of the C.W. Earle Gin, address 5947 US 80, are a short distance south of the highway. Some of the equipment and siding was quite rusted, and I could not tell if this is a going concern or not. 

Texaco, US 80 view west, Start, Louisiana

This is all the excitement in Start. The next community west is Monroe, the "big city" of central Louisiana. We will continue our trip on US 80 in the next article. Thanks for riding along.

These digital images are from a Fuji X-E1 compact camera with the 18mm ƒ/2 Fuji lens.

On the Dixie Overland Highway, Historic US 80 - Dunn and Rayville, Louisiana (LA-05)

US 80 west of Delhi, Louisiana (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

We continue our trip west on The Dixie Overland Highway, now called US 80. Coming out of Delhi, 80 continues through a mixture of farm fields and an occasional forest patch.

Former service station, 1580 US 80, Dunn, LA (GAF Versapan film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Schneider Angulon lens)

I came across some remnants of the old 80 that may have served travelers during the pre-interstate era.

These two abandoned stores were at the corner of Weems Road and US 80 in Dunn. As in so many rural areas, old country stores have been abandoned and left to the weather and vines.

On the road to Rayville, US 80 (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

As in these other small towns along US 80, the Kansas City Southern trains thunder through several times a day. There was no depot that I could see.

The main road through town is Harrison Street, which is also US 80. A restaurant at the corner was pretty busy, but I was concerned about the virus and did not go in to get lunch. I was pleased to see that most people were rigorous about wearing masks, more so than in Mississippi.

Joy Theater, Harrison Street, Rayville (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

The old Joy Theater on Harrison Street was a classic 1930s theater of the type you would have seen in many towns. The facade was interesting, but unfortunately, the building is a wreck. In the first picture, you can see a tree growing out of the interior.

One last picture, and this one stays in color: Robinson's Meat Market at 402 Madeline Street. What a great folk art advertisement, with lobsters, steaks, and sausages. The proprietor said a fellow from New Orleans painted it. 

Most of these images are from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera on which I mounted an Olympus OM 35mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko Shift lens. The shift function let me correct for converging lines optically at the time of taking the picture (as opposed to using software after the fact to correct convergence). Most pictures of buildings that you see on the web show converging vertical lines, such as the edges of the building. But when you look at the scene with your eyes, your brain accommodates the convergence and the lines appear straight. Nikon and Canon make modern shift lenses, but very few contemporary users buy these rather technical lenses. I expect that most never used a large format camera, where you can shift the front standard upwards to correct the convergence.

If you want background information on US 80 and the Dixie Overland Highway, the Federal Highway Administration has a detailed history. 

In the next article, we will continue west on US 80. Thank you for riding along!

On the Dixie Overland Highway, Historic US 80 - Delhi, Louisiana (LA-04)

Heading west on the historic Dixie Overland Highway (now US 80), we reach Delhi (DELL-hi, Loo-zee-ANA) only a few miles west of Waverly (see the previous article).

US 80, Delhi, Louisiana (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

According to Wikipedia, Delhi, which is in Richland Parish, was originally called Deerfield. It looked like a clean and cheerful town, at least during a blazing hot summer day in mid-July 2020. The temperature was hovering around 35° C (95° F), and it was a challenge to use the dark cloth on my 4×5" camera. I wimped out and also took some digital snaps.

Former shop (car dealer?), US 80 (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Mooney's Auto Sales & Repair, 236 Rundell St., Delhi (Tri-X 400 film, Fuji GW690II camera, EBC Fujinon 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens, yellow filter)

Heading into town from the east, you see a number of old commercial buildings, nothing too exciting.

509 East 1st Street (US 80) (4×5" GAF Versapan film, 135mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar-S II lens, yellow filter)

Former service bay, 509 East 1st Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

501 East 1st Street 4×5" (GAF Versapan film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, yellow filter)

Former service bay, 501 East 1st Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

These two unused gasoline stations are on the south side of US 80 as it enters Delhi from the east. I do not know the architecture well enough to identify the original oil companies that built the stations. Both were faced with enameled steel panels, which are very durable and remain clean. Unfortunately, the roofs on both units were wood, and 501 has collapsed.

Former Water Works, Depot Street (4×5" GAF Versapan film, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens, yellow filter)

Within the main town, I did not see much of photographic interest except for the old Waterworks building on Depot Street. I did not see a railroad depot. Is it gone?

Helena Chemical from US 80 (Tri-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens, polarizer)

Helena Chemical (Tachihara 4×5"camera, 135mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar-S II lens, polarizer) 

West of downtown, I drove past an impressive elevator/silo complex owned by Helena Chemical. I like industrial photography like this and plan to do more of it in the future.

In the next article, we will continue west on US 80. Thank you for riding along.