Moving Out: Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

Background

Isle de Jean Charles is a small fishing community at the south end of Island Road in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. It feels like the end of the world. The town was the home of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians for almost 200 years. All the houses now are elevated on piles or stilts, and there is limited dry land. One low and vulnerable road, a spur off of Louisiana 665, leads to the town. 

Because Island Road is often flooded, sometimes for days, and safety services can not be guaranteed for the residents, the community needs to move. According to a January 2024 BBC article, "This Louisiana town moved to escape climate-linked disaster," the residents of Isle Jean Charles are in the process of relocating to The New Isle Community, much further inland and safe from flooding. Building a major levee system to protect the town from hurricane surge was too expensive, and relocation was the only alternative.

Sediments of the Mississippi Delta

The title of the BBC article is somewhat deceptive. Rising sea level is making the road to Isle de Jean Charles more vulnerable to storm surges and even normal high tides. And the rising sea exacerbates other issues throughout south Louisiana such as infrastructure, drainage, pollutants, and sea water incursion further into the swamps. But at least four other major factors account for land loss in southern Louisiana:

1. The sediment is sinking. All this marshy deltaic sediment came down the Mississippi River. As the immense sediment mass of the Mississippi Delta dewaters over centuries, it compresses. 

2. Oil and gas producers dredged channels through the marshes. These channels allowed seawater to enter the marshes and kill fresh-water marsh vegetation. Without the root structures and emergent plants, storms washed away the limited soil. And the lack of plants means minimal new sediment gets trapped.

3. The path of the Mississippi River has been channelized by levees for 200 years. During floods, sediment no longer spreads out over the adjacent delta. When the US Army Corps of Engineers dredges the navigation channel, they place some of this material onto the nearby marshes. Openings in the levees also allow flood water to spread. But these two placement and diversion mechanisms still do not replicate the pre-engineered river when it flowed unconstrained.

4. Less sediment is brought down to south Louisiana. Compared to the era before the late 1800s, levees line all of the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries. The era of mass tree deforestation is over. Farming practice considers erosion control much more than it did 100 years ago. Dams on the Missouri and Ohio River systems trap sediment in their ponds. The Corps of Engineers reduces bank sloughing and erosion with concrete mats. In effect, we are retaining sediment on the continent. 

This is a complicated topic. A vast technical literature examines sediment, hydrology, climatology, and geotechnical issues in Southern Louisiana.

A March 2019 article in The New Yorker, "Louisiana's Disappearing Coast," is a readable and detailed description of the factors that cause land loss. 

John McFee's seminal 1987 article in The New Yorker, "The Control of Nature, Atchafalaya," describes the heroic efforts to prevent the Mississippi River from changing its path to debouch into the Gulf of Mexico at the Atchafalaya delta, not the present delta.  

Isle de Jean Charles in 2019

Bayou or boat canal parallel to Island Road, Isle de Jean Charles, April 28, 2019

Pedestrian bridge over boat canal

My wife and I drove out to Isle de Jean Charles in spring of 2019. We were on a trip to explore the Acadian Parishes of Louisiana and revisit some towns that we had seen before, such as Dulac and Lafayette. We had read about Isle de Jean Charles and wanted to see the town. Driving on Island Road felt like we were on a boat crossing the marshes and lakes. In many stretches, the pavement was only a foot or less above the water.

We stopped at the marina. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the town gents were drinking beer and having a good old time out on the deck. They said they had seen the plans to move everyone to a new town and were somewhat skeptical. Some of the town residents already had homes further inland. They watched the tide predictions, and if high water or a tropical storm was predicted, they would head north to stay with relatives and wait for the weather to pass. The gents also wondered if the plan was to move the Chawtaws out and then the developers would build condominiums. 

Wood crossovers to provide access to Island Road

Boat canal almost filled with vegetation

Elevated Isle de Jean Charles house

This was a nice afternoon. The few people we met were friendly. But we were not in town long enough to get a sense of how many people lived there at that time. It felt quiet. If the BBC article is correct, Isle de Jean Charles may be much quieter soon. I am glad that my wife and I had the chance to visit when it was still possible.

I took these photographs with a Hasselblad 501CM camera on Kodak Panatomic-X film using 50mm and 80mm Zeiss lenses. Some were tripod-mounted. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi film scanner. Panatomic-X is a mid-century wonder product for this type of subject matter. 

 

The Mississippi Delta 38b: Hwy 49W and the Belzoni area (XPan 12)

Dear Readers, let's take another look at the Mississippi Delta with the panoramic Hasselblad XPan camera. Please type XPan in the search box to see older articles from Vicksburg, the Delta, Jackson, and Louisiana.

After my drive north on Highway US 49E to the little town of Sidon, I headed west through flat and lonely farm fields on MS 511 (Phillipston Road) and MS 7, finally reaching Morgan City on US49W. Long-term readers may remember that I looked at Morgan City in the Mississippi Delta 23. I also explored junk in the woods in 2015. 

1st Avenue, Morgan City (30mm ƒ/5.6 lens)

This former commercial block has only one building with an intact roof. The dudes were hanging out in the shade and drinking.

Fixer-upper barn, Swiftown (45mm, yellow filter)

Gin, Swiftown (90mm ƒ/4 lens)

Swiftown is not really a town, just an unincorporated community in Leflore County about 7 miles south of Morgan City. The barn next to a trailer was interesting. The cotton gin looks unused.

Head south about 10 miles and you reach Belzoni. 

Junction of MLK Jr. Drive and Church Street, Belzoni

My friend, who grew up in Belzoni, told me that these Quanset huts were restaurants owned by a local Italian family, the Mechattos. They were immigrants from Sicily. My friend's grandmother called them "The Hut." They made wonderful homemade salad dressing. One waitress was called Tootsie. My friend did not know when the family left or stopped operating the restaurant. 

China Street, Belzoni

Much of Belzoni is pretty rough today. And it may no longer be the Catfish Capital of the World. Please click the link for some 2021 photographs of Belzoni.

Thank you all for riding along in the Mississippi Delta.

The Mississippi Delta 37b: Eden, Tchula, and Sidon (Xpan 11)

On my recent trip north on Route 49E, I revisited the tiny town of Tchula. I photographed here in 2020 with black and white film. This time, I was using my friend's Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera and wanted to capture some scenes in the wide view.

Eden

Attack of the Spacemen, Eden, Mississippi (45mm lens, ƒ/8.0½, yellow-green filter)

Eden is a little town of about 130 inhabitants in Yazoo County just west of 49E. There is not much to see except for the Cyclopian spacemen in front of the closed convenience store. I have admired them before. We continue north on 49E.

Tchula

Bridge to Cooper Road, Tchula (45mm, yellow-green filter)

Guinea hen house, Front Street, Tchula. Note the wandering rooster.

Time for lunch, Front Street, Tchula (45mm lens, yellow-green filter, ƒ/8.0½)

Front Street may have been the former 49E. It semi-parallels Tchula Lake, which is really a tributary stream to the Yazoo River.

The Tchula Hardware Company on 201 East Main Street is like a throwback to another era - a hardware store with all the useful things you can use to fix your house, bicycle, car, flooring, or appliances. The gent siting outside graciously said I could to take pictures inside. A young lady in a couch did not pay any attention to me. I placed the XPan with the super-wide 30mm lens on a counter and set the self-timer. The exposures at ƒ/11 were in the 2-4 seconds range. To see some of the detail, please click any picture.

Sidon

West Railroad Avenue, Sidon (45m lens, yellow-green filter, ƒ/11)

There is not much to Sidon now. East and West Railroad Avenues have no commercial buildings any more other than the post office. The wide bare stretch where my car is parked may have once been a rail yard or the location of a depot.

This ends our short trip on US 49E in the central Delta. Stand-by for more exploring in the future. Thank you for riding along.

The Mississippi Delta 39: Thornton

Thornton is the remnant of a town on US 49E south of Tchula and north of Yazoo City in the Mississippi Delta. Two dilapidated square-front commercial buildings remain on the only street in town. More buildings would have once formed a small commercial core. 

Silos and gin south of Thornton (Kodak Tri-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 EBC-Fujinon lens, yellow filter, 1/250 ƒ/8)

I drove on 49E on a blazing hot day in 2020. This gin and the silos may be unused, but possibly in Autumn, when cotton is harvested, the gin is put back into operation. The frames above are from a medium format Fuji GW690II camera with Tri-X film (click any frame to see details at 2400 pixels wide.

Mark's store in Thornton (45mm lens, yellow-green filter)

Mr. Kevin hangin' out, Thornton (45mm lens)

In 2022, I drove back north on 49E but this time stopped in Thornton. Mr. Kevin was standing in front of one of the square buildings. At 11:00, he was already slurring and asked me if I came to see Mark. I said sure. Mark came out of the other square building and was in much better shape. He said his father formerly owned the building and ran a store. At this time, it looked like Mark lived there. I forgot to ask if they had safe drinking water. Other gents in town were also drinking or enjoying weed. Mark generously said I could photograph the store. They all admired my 42-year-old car, which is a conversation ice-breaker. Kevin said with a car like that, he could get the chicks.

J. Chambers Street view west, Thornton (45 mm lens, yellow-green filter)

The three last photographs are from a Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera and the 45mm ƒ/4 lens. The film was Fuji Acros, exposed at EI=80. The light was harsh and glarey.

For more articles about the Delta, type "Mississippi Delta" in the search box. Click any photograph above for more details.

The Mississippi Delta 38: Spring in the Delta, Belzoni Area

In Spring of 2021, we were restless. Other than day trips, we had been nowhere. The Pandemic was raging and the vaccines had just been introduced. Why not take a short outing to the Mississippi Delta? Pack a lunch, drinks, and a carafe of coffee, and we would not need to go into any stores or restaurants. I loaded my Hasselblad with the long-discontinued Kodak Panatomic-X film and we were off.

Sky Lake Wildlife Management Area is a fascinating wetland containing huge ancient cypress trees, which fortunately were saved from logging. The WMA is located in Humphreys and Leflore Counties a short distance north of Belzoni. A boardwalk lets you walk out into the forest. The woods were flooded, as you can see in the photographs above. 

I have visited Belzoni in 2020 and earlier, but did not make it to the Sky Lake WMA.

There are farms and a few homes near the WMA. This old graveyard and barn was on Lake Road.

On the way home, we took Old Hwy. 49 south past Silver City and Midnight (see my 2020 article).  

Railroad trestle over Silver Creek, Old US 49W, Midnight

We drove south on Old Hwy. 48 into Midnight. Silver Creek winds its way through the central Delta and through town. A railroad once served Midnight; a trestle over the creek is one of the few remains.

There not much left to the town. A crumbling gas station and a small store/juke joint are about it.  
 

Worker hut, Box Plantation, Silver Creek Road, Midnight (Tri-X film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens)

This is a photograph I took in 2020 of a farm workers' hut behind the main house at Box Plantation.

This ends out very short spring visit to the Delta. For more photograph of the Mississippi Delta, type the term in the search box. Thanks for riding along. 

The Mississippi Delta 34: 2012 Road Trip through the Central Delta

Here are some photographs from a short trip through the southern and central Mississippi Delta in March of 2012. I often used digital equipment at this time but still took a film camera with me when I looked for interesting topics.

Boyle

Boyle is in Bolivar County, Mississippi, just a short distance south of Cleveland. Catfish is, or at least was, a big business. I expect most people drive by quickly on US 61/US 278 heading to or from Cleveland, where Delta State University is located. There is not too much to see in Boyle. But south of town, I saw the sun shining on a cluster of old gravestones just off 278. I could not find a name for the graveyard. If any readers can identify the site, please let me know.

Mound Bayou

Mound Bayou, about 10 miles north of Cleveland, has an interesting history in that it was a town founded by former slaves. I wrote about Mound Bayou before in The Mississippi Delta 8 and The Mississippi Delta 8b. The history of this town is a story of determination, back-breaking hard work, and a dream of creating a better life for African Americans in an era when they were treated brutally by the southern white political establishment and the klan.

The Taborian Hospital was founded by the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor, a fraternal organization. For over twenty years, the hospital provided low-cost health care to African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta in an era when most public hospitals would only admit white patients. When I took these pictures in March 2012, the Taborian Hospital had been closed for almost two decades. From 2012 to 2015, the hospital was renovated, cleaned, and reopened as an urgent care facility. Preservation in Mississippi wrote about the progress in 2012 and 2016. But as of 2018, it was closed again! The facility is mired in some sort of lawsuit, and there is minimal information on the web about what is happening. All that money and effort wasted?

Shelby

Shelby is another town in Bolivar County. It has (had) more of a downtown that many other Delta towns, but today much of Shelby is pretty rough. I wrote about Shelby before in The Mississippi Delta 9. I will return some day and look around some more.

Hushpuckena

Former general store (Panatomic-X, Fuji GW690II, no filter)

Interior of store with discarded medical records (Panasonic G-1 digital file converted to B&W)

Old store in Hushpuchena (Panasonic G-1 digital file converted to B&W)

Hushpuckena is an unincorporated community - really a former town - about 4 miles north of Shelby. A friend's uncle suggested I take a look and he was right. The former commercial strip faced Old 49, which is now a partly overgrown country lane. I included an interior picture from my digital camera because the papers all over the floor were 1980s medical records from Bolivar County Hospital. I told a doctor friend of mine from Greenville, and he recovered and destroyed the records. He said he recognized some nurses on his staff.

This ends our very short 2012 drive through the central Delta. All these photographs except the two digital Hushpuckena files are from Kodak Panatomic-X film taken with my Fuji GW690II camera with EBC Fujinon 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens. I used a tripod to support the camera for all these frames.

The Mississippi Delta 33: Crusin' Old 49 to Silver City, Midnight, Louise, and Holly Bluff

Old US 49 passes through rich agricultural terrain in the southern Mississippi Delta. One of my day trips in spring of 2020 was to check some of the small towns along Old US 49W south of Belzoni, see what was happening, and exercise my Tachihara 4×5" field camera. I have written before that I had not used large format film in a number of years, so why not visit towns and record interesting sights in the Delta? In Mississippi, the virus did not force us to remain at home, so visiting the Delta was a nice way to get out of the house.

Silver City

Stir It Up Club, Silver City (Kodak Ektar 25 film, 80mm F/2.8 Planar-CB lens, polarizing filter)

Trading Post, Mims Ave., Silver City (Tri-X, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, 1/50 ƒ/16)

Update June 2022: this little trading post is no longer extant.

Fixer-upper house, Mims Avenue, Silver City (90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, yellow-green filter)

Club Stir It Up, Silver City (TMax 100 film, Pentax Spotmatic, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super Takumar lens, polarizer)

Cottage, West Street, Silver City (TMax 100 film, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super Takumar lens, polarizer)

Abandoned church, US 49W west of Silver City (Acros film, Leica IIIC, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, yellow filter)

Silver City is a small town in Humphreys County on US 49W about 7 miles south of Belzoni. I suspect most travelers zip on by heading to or from Belzoni or Yazoo City and barely notice that they drove through Silver City. There is not much to see, just homes, trailers, and a few gas stations. The electronics store looked like it had been shut for years, and I saw some empty houses and a church.

Highway 149 takes you southwest out of town through what seems like endless farm fields with an occasional patch of trees or a bayou.

Midnight

Midnight Gin, Old US 49W (4×5" Tri-X, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens, yellow filter) 

Midnight Gin, Old US 49W (GAF Versapan film, 135mm ƒ/4.5 Xenar lens, yellow filter)

Midnight is an unincorporated community at the junction of MS 149 and Old US 49W. The gin just north of town caught my eye because of the shapes and patterns. It provided some opportunities to test some 1960s-vintage GAF Versapan film (see the previous posts on this topic).

Worker cottage, Box Plantation, Silver Creek Road, Midnight (Tri-X film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, 1/25 ƒ/16)

I saw some nice homes on Silver Creek Road. A handsome 1800s house was being restored. A lady told me that it was once part of Box Plantation. In the back, I saw a workers' cottage with long porch. Most of Midnight is really rough. As quoted in Wikipedia, "Shashank Bengali of McClatchy Newspapers said that Midnight "feels like a place whose time has expired." Bengali explains that the clapboard houses, which were built almost one century before 2010, "rot on their cinder-block legs, tilting at crazy angles" and that Midnight's principal road is "dotted with abandoned or half-burned cabins that, older residents complain, young men disappear into to shoot dice or smoke pot as the days fade into dusk."[4]."

Louise

Main Street, Louise (Moto G5 digital file converted to B&W with DxO filmpack 5)

Main St., Louise (Tri-X, 135mm ƒ/4.5 Schneider Xenar lens, yellow filter, 1/60 ƒ/16.5) 

Louise is another little agricultural town on Old 49W in Humphreys County.

Main St., Louise (Tri-X, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens, yellow filter) 

Where is everyone? Main St., Louise in 2016 (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens) 

Lee Hong Grocery, Main St., Louise (135mm ƒ/4.5 Xenar lens, orange filter, 1/200 ƒ/16)

Louise is another small agricultural town with only about 300 citizens. Main Street once paralleled the railroad tracks and had the usual early-1900s square-front commercial buildings and shops. Most are closed now, and some are falling down. The silos dominate the center of town.

Mobile home, Old 49, Louise (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Much of the housing stock here in the Delta is pretty rough. These unshaded mobile homes in mid-summer must be blazing hot.

Holly Bluff

On this trip, I did not stop in Holly Bluff because I have been there before (please see The Mississippi Delta 17). A couple of miles north of town, an old silo glittered in the setting sun.

Silo north of Holly Bluff (GAF Versapan film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, yellow filter, 1/25 ƒ/22)

Heading out of Holly Bluff on MS 16 towards Rolling Fork, you pass some rather beat-up trailers and old cottages.

Empty mobile home, MS 16 (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted th B&W)

Asbestos shingle-clad house, MS 16 (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

On this trip, I was able to continue testing some 1960s Versapan film, formerly made by the GAF company. By the time I had photographed the silo just north of Holly Bluff, I had used all my film holders, sunset was close, and Satartia Road was finally above water and open. I headed home. Standby for more of the Delta in future articles.