Summer's Harvest - A Great American Story

Part 1: PEEP'N TOM

Downtown Belle Chasse (pronounced bell – chase) was situated lengthwise between River Road which edged along the Mississippi River to the north, and the railroad track to the south. The town's main street, Osage, ran from north to south – Mississippi River to the railroad track, hereby slicing the rectangular downtown into two square sections.

Osage Street met the section of track coming north from the housing and plantation populated inland and splitting into the East Railroad to the west and the West Railroad to the east. The inaccurate names bequeathed to the two sections of track must have been a joke or ignorance. Nobody owned up to it.

The heat of Louisiana in August hung thick and heavy in the air. There were several local businesses in the 12-block downtown area comprised of six blocks on the east and six on the west. In the eastern half, Jonathan Wilkinson's Drug & General Store prominently consumed the block closest to the river on the Osage thoroughfare. His residence was on the block behind. The first-floor of his house was converted into Millie Wilkinson's Dress Shoppe for his enterprising wife. Next door to the general store was the Plaquemines Bank, also on one whole block. The last block (abutting the West Railroad) featured Doc Miller's two-story home and office combination, where he lived with his daughter. The locksmith's shop shared the block. Churches essentially for Whites hunkered on the two rear blocks inland from the Wilkinson house; Catholic and Protestant with a vicarage/parsonage attached to each. In the center of town the noon day sun cast hard shadows against Bob's gas station and the closed silent movie theater that dated back at least thirty years. At night the marquee was inadequately lighted by a few dusty bulbs which seemed ageless.

The western half of downtown was the home to the Owl's Nest Club & Pool Hall; the Belle Chasse Diner, over the door a white sign hung obliquely specifying whites only; and various other stores and services. The western section petered out to the north-to-south running Plaquemines (pronounced plack ' –eh-mine) River, where a small cluster of Negro-owned homes clung to the river-bordered land.

Most businesses were owned and run by White citizens but some lenience was given for trades that White men felt beneath their dignity. These isolated livelihoods included the blacksmith shop run by Sampson Oliver, a Negro, and a shoeshine stand out front that his two sons operated when school classes didn't interfere. Fat Libby sold her homemade pies to the Belle Chasse Diner. Everyone knew Beatrice Wingate did alterations at Millie Wilkinson's Dress Shoppe and lived in a small house on that farthest northwestern end of downtown where Mississippi and Plaquemines Rivers met. Dwayne and Celia got permission to erect their fruit, vegetable, honey and fresh fish stand just beyond the main cluster of buildings where the paved walkway ended and Osage Street headed out to the residential area. Since only one permit was allowed for such a stand, Dwayne and Celia took other Negroes' produce in under-the-table and split the profits.

Negroes had their own houses of worship located in their housing area which was on the lower west side of the inland railroad track, most notably in an area called Gnats Alley that bordered Plaquemines River, east of the track were White homes and plantations reside. These finer properties also branched out behind the eastern section of town and extended along the Mississippi. Marshland interspersed both sections and was considered inescapable for the fertile land.

Belle Chasse had law enforcement, however... since Belle Chasse was in Plaquemines Parish, and West Pointe-a-la-Hache (pronounced pointe-la'hash) was the parish seat, the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Station, jail and courthouse was 35 miles east of town down the Mississippi River in tiny Pointe-a-la-Hache. The town was called west because the Mississippi on the east side was plain old Pointe-a-la-Hache. It was an easy 15-minute drive up River Road to Osage Street.