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There’s no record of what the ancient settlers of Louisiana thought about Louisiana’s live oaks, but poets and travelers have written about their majesty and beauty since they first arrived with pen and paper.
Longfellow wrote of a river “o’ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted.” In 1890, Tulane professor Alcée Fortier was so taken by “the tranquil waters of the Teche, its banks covered with moss-grown live-oaks,” that he began to “imagine what must have been the feelings of the Acadians when they saw for the first time ... the beautiful Attakapas country. “
The noted Louisiana writer Harnett T. Kane traveled across south Louisiana more than once in the 1940s and found “patriarchs in stately rows, long files for several miles; double avenues, with branches arching high above the heads of passers-by, leaves mingling with leaves.”
The huge old trees so impressed Edwin L. Stephens, the first president of the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (UL Lafayette today) that he created a Live Oak Society made up of the trees themselves. Its membership was limited to centenarians — oaks 100 years old or older.
Stephens first suggested creation of the society in an article in the Louisiana Conservation Review in April 1934 titled “I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing” (taken from Walt Whitman’s poem). “I have been considering the live oak for some time and am coming to believe that the world does not realize what a splendid possession it holds in this tree,” Stephens wrote.
He’d talked with tree experts who estimated that a tree had to be at least 17 feet in girth to be 100 years old, and he set that as the criterion for membership when he selected 43 oaks as charter members of the society in 1934. Each tree in the organization was given an “attorney” or sponsor to act as its guardian.
The trees once paid dues of 25 acorns per year and could be expelled for such offenses as whitewashing or bearing advertising. In fact, a group of trees was once “tried” by Judge Horace White of Alexandria for whitewashing, but were not expelled on the grounds that the trees did not apply the whitewash themselves.
Under the bylaws, the largest oak in the society holds rank as president, with such things decided at “semi-occasional meetings.” The Locke Breaux Oak in Taft was the first president, but it fell victim to air and water pollution in 1968. The current president is the stately Seven Sisters Oak in Mandeville. It’s got a 38-foot waistline and the experts think it may be 1,200 years old.
The first vice president is Middleton Oak in Charleston, South Carolina, with a girth of 31 feet. The second vice president is the St. John Cathedral Oak in Lafayette, measuring 27 feet. The Lagarde Oak in Luling is third vice president and measures 29 feet. The Martha Washington Oak in Audubon Park in New Orleans is fourth vice president and measures 28 feet in girth.
The notarial signature on the society’s first constitution and bylaws note that they were “done before me, the Robert Martin Live Oak, at my official position at the front gate of Southwestern Louisiana Institute, this first day of February, AD 1935, in the presence of the Stanley Martin Live Oak (set out February 22, 1919, and also of seventeen Twentieth Century live oaks beside myself (set out January 1, 1901) together with one hundred other small live oaks on the Southwestern campus.” Those oaks planted by Stephens to surround the main UL campus are now 100 years old and eligible for membership.
The Louisiana Garden Club Federation now oversees the society and the list of 43 trees originally proposed by Stephens has grown to more than 8,000 trees across the country. You can find out how to measure and nominate your big tree or more about the society on the federation web site.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

Cypress Bayou Casino-Hotel hosted some 75 media professionals Thursday for a presentation on the gaming facility’s history and a look at recent renovations and changes.
Acting General Manager Jack Darden addressed newspaper, radio and television representatives from across Louisiana in The Bamboo Room in the newer section of the casino.
Darden, a 20-year employee of the casino, left the oil field and took a position with Cypress Bayou to “help our tribe as a business, and look at it from a different form, how we do economic diversification.”
A former tribal school board member who worked his way up through the business, Darden used his own life story to illustrate the path of the Chitimacha Tribe to its current status. “I watched my family reap modest rewards for their labor working a farm and growing gardens,” he said. “I grew up in a home that my great-grandfather lived in, that in 1932 one of the bedrooms was a schoolroom for tribal people to get an education.”
His father still lives in that home, but in 1934 the state gave the tribe a one-room wooden building that had been condemned. Tribal members repaired and renovated it and it served as a school until the late 1970s.
The Chitimacha sued the federal government in 1846 for “confirmation of title to tribal lands that then recognized about 1,093 acres. Taxation and continued litigation reduced this to 263 acres.”
Sarah McIlhenny, a member of the Tabasco sauce family, had been buying Chitimacha baskets, aware that those baskets were renowned across the world. McIlhenny paid the taxes as the last of the land was being sold on the courthouse steps. She then worked with the federal government to put the last of the acreage into federal trust. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a law assuring the tribe’s ownership of the land.
“We’re the only tribe in Louisiana still occupying a portion of its original land,” Darden said. “We’re aboriginal, we’ve been here for over 6,000 years now.”
The right to gaming was actually created 120 years ago through Congress, federal legislation and treaties, verified in 1984 by the US Supreme Court. The tribe opened Bayouland Bingo in 1988, which was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
In 1993 the renovated hall was opened with slots; it was expanded in 1995 by 85,000 square feet, and 1998 another expansion took place.
“What does this mean to us as a people?” Darden said. “It’s allowed us to buy back some original homeland and begin to diversify our efforts by pursing economic opportunities like Raintree Market.” Also the Trading Post near the casino, and Keta Group, a company engaged in federal government contracting.
The tribe’s economic efforts have allowed it to operate a school system and board, housing and election boards, a police department and fire department, senior living facilities, scholarship programs, tribal courts, school child care, a medical facility, museum and housing and public works.
“Like the communities you live in, we as a tribe have the same things,” Darden said. “We’re a community within the community.”
Cypress Bayou employs some 750 people, down from 1,100. “As you know, there have been some economically challenging times,” he said. “Where we once were the first land-based casino, we had the market to ourselves for a long time, and through expansion it changes operations, makes it much more challenging…we have a $25 million annual payroll, and those taxes go back to state and federal government.”
Construction of the hotel used 70 percent local or state contractors, he said.
“We’re thankful for those who have helped us further our cause,” Darden said. “Like the small story I shared of my own, that’s only representative of the many tribal people we have here, who each have stories of what something may have meant to them.”
The tribe’s mission statement priorities are its people, players and employees.
Though more competition and a faltering economy have had their effect, Darden said the casino still offers multiple venues, experiences in dining, entertainment and much more.

St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office Dive Team conducted a property recovery operation in Bayou Teche at the Sterling Bridge in Franklin on Wednesday. Continuing an investigation into a home burglary that occurred in Glencoe, detectives of the Criminal Investigation Section developed information that led to the coordination of the operation. The dive team located property that had been reported stolen in a home burglary in Glencoe as well as other items that are suspected to be stolen. At this time, the case remains under investigation. St. Mary Sheriff’s Office Dive Team is made up of deputies from various sections within our agency who complete extensive training to become members. At top, from the boat, Captain Beau Martin tends Deputy Jimmy Stinnett who is in the water; below, Deputy Stinnett emerges after recovering items from the murky water.