Student's hand-woven mural will brighten MC's Railroad Avenue

MORGAN CITY — A stretch of Railroad Avenue in one of Morgan City’s oldest neighborhoods looks different these days. Where there was once only a weathered retaining wall of old railroad ties, there is now a bold, colorful mural — hand-woven one strip at a time by a high school student who happens to live a few blocks away.
Ja’Mariah Steele, a senior at Morgan City High School, created the mural by cutting strips of colorful parachute-style ripstop material and weaving them by hand through plastic mesh temporary fencing. The artwork features images of community life in the Coal Chute neighborhood — a boat, a shrimp, an oil derrick — named for the railroad coal chute that once stood along Railroad Avenue. When sections didn’t meet her standards, she pulled the strips out and started over.
“I wanted to make a positive difference of putting art over an eyesore that has been overlooked time and time again,” Steele said. “I wanted to help create something that represented Morgan City’s traditions. Volunteering for this project showed me how creativity can inspire people and make a community feel more connected and vibrant.”
“Ja’mariah completed this mural with tireless dedication, countless hours, and meticulous attention to detail — all with a smile on her face,” said Christine Myers, Steele’s teacher at Morgan City High School.
The project began last year in a hallway at the back of the school, where Steele and fellow student Lexi Thibodaux started cutting and weaving strips of ripstop material into the plastic mesh fencing. Thibodaux helped at the start, but for roughly four of the five-and-a-half months the mural was in progress, Steele worked on it alone, perfecting the designs as she went.
In January, volunteer Tommy Gegenheimer built a movable wooden frame on location, and additional volunteers helped him install it along the railroad tie wall. The finished mural was then opened up and attached to the frame, which can be repositioned if needed.
The project was funded by St. Mary Excel, the nonprofit economic development organization that has been working to strengthen Morgan City’s neighborhoods from the ground up. The mural grew out of the organization’s neighborhood signage program, which placed custom signs at neighborhood entrances throughout Morgan City and Berwick. Those signs were funded through an Atchafalaya National Heritage Area grant.
Some neighborhoods had already funded their own signs independently. The entire effort was designed to encourage residents to pull together around beautification in their own communities. Several neighborhoods have embraced the idea wholeheartedly — community members in some areas decorate their signs for holidays, and both the city of Morgan City and the town of Berwick have taken on landscaping maintenance around their neighborhood signs. The Lakeside subdivision went a step further, protecting their sign landscaping through a recent hard freeze.
The mural idea itself traces back more than two years, when Letitia “Sunshine” Butler, owner of Angel’s Notary on Railroad Avenue, contacted St. Mary Excel to express her interest in cleaning up the area around her home. That conversation led to the concept of a community mural that would transform a neglected stretch of the street into something worth noticing.
For Steele, the project was personal. She lives in the neighborhood and wanted to create something that represented the community she calls home. Marcelle Hoskins, who grew up in the Coal Chute neighborhood and now lives in the adjacent “Across the Tracks” area, is also excited about what the mural represents for the community.
Hoskins personally decorated two neighborhood signs — the Coal Chute sign, which was funded through the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area grant, and the Across the Tracks sign, for which she spearheaded fundraising among her neighbors.
“I grew up in Coal Chute, and I’ve always been proud of where I come from. When I saw what Ja’mariah was creating, it just confirmed what I already knew-this neighborhood has heart. That’s why I take care of those signs. If we show we care about where we live, other people will too.”
The beautification efforts along Railroad Avenue and across Morgan City’s neighborhoods come at a meaningful time. St. Mary Parish is poised to become the site of Louisiana’s only Atchafalaya National Estuarine Research Reserve, a federal designation that will bring increased attention, investment, and visitors to the region.
Organizers say all of St. Mary Parish needs to be ready for that designation, and the neighborhood improvements are part of a broader effort to call attention to keeping the area clean and attractive as the parish steps onto a larger stage.
Catherine Holcomb, president of St. Mary Excel, said the mural is an example of what happens when a community member speaks up and young people step forward with talent and determination. “Every strip Ja’mariah wove into that mural was a choice to make her own neighborhood more beautiful. We’re seeing that kind of pride start to spread — one neighborhood, one sign, one project at a time — and that’s how real change happens.”