Jim Bradshaw: When the train was late coming to the prairie

The common assumption is that after the railroad crossed the Louisiana prairies in 1880, Southern Pacific went right to work recruiting settlers to provide travelers and cargoes for their trains. The railroad did push for immigrants to build new towns next to the rails. But according to one of the most important town builders that didn’t happen as quickly or as easily as we might think.
W. Duson founded Crowley and, as manager of the Southwest Louisiana Land Co., bought and sold hundreds of thousands of acres of South Louisiana prairie land. He spoke at the Louisiana Banker’s Association convention in Lake Charles in April 1906, and his remarks were preserved in a little booklet printed and distributed by him.
His opening lets us know that he thought highly of this place: “When your arrangement committee placed me on the program for an address upon the development of Southwest Louisiana, they were evidently laboring under the impression that this convention would be in session for two weeks instead of two days, and that at least one week of that time would be allotted to me … [because] you might listen for an entire week regarding the wonderful development of … Southwest Louisiana … and even then the story would not be half told.”
He said he did not like to simply recite “dry and uninteresting figures,” but that some of the numbers were necessary to show “results so astounding and so remarkable as to be truly dramatic, pregnant with the story of work, energies and efforts; of undying faith in spite of ridicule and doubt, but over which …  success stands pre-eminent.”
He gave statistics about increases in real estate assessments, taxable incomes, bank deposits, money spent on education, and the timber trade, and suggested that the recent discovery of oil would be “of great benefit” to the area. His dry figures, he said, showed “an improvement so rapid, so steady and … so successful as to astonish even [the bankers] who are accustomed to deal with big transactions and big results.”
Coming from Crowley, already proclaimed “the rice capital of the world,” he devoted a good part of his remarks to that budding industry, the irrigation systems that supported it, and “the efforts … put forth by the little band of men who have worked so hard and so faithfully to build up … a magnificent and prosperous farming community.”
It was that little band of men, not the railroad, that first produced the vision of prosperity on the prairie, Duson said. They built a farm economy that  “demonstrated … what could be done with our lands,” and also saw that it was “necessary that we should have people to develop them.” It seemed only natural that owners and managers of the newly built railroad would share that sentiment, but that wasn’t the case, according to Duson.
 “When you take into consideration the fact that the lands to be developed lay entirely along the line of a single railroad, the management of which at that time had no faith in this section of the state, and, in fact, no interest in its development, you can readily realize by what great difficulties we were handicapped,” he said.
Nonetheless, the  people of South Louisiana kept promoting their vision and “gradually the confidence of the railroad officials was gained” until “finally the Southern Pacific management was found marching hand in hand with the progress of Southwest Louisiana.”.
“Inasmuch as all which has been accomplished … was done only after surmounting every possible obstacle which could confront those … endeavoring to develop what was then almost a bare prairie, it is safe to say that the development already accomplished is but the forerunner of what can and will be done,” he concluded, forecasting that south Louisiana would soon be “leading, the entire gulf coast in … development, increased wealth, and the value of her products.”
He was too modest to mention that he was at the forefront of that little band of persevering community builders, or that he’d hounded the railroad management until it finally took notice of the prairie’s potential.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.