Livingston, Livingston Parish, Louisiana File prepared by D.N. Pardue Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From the book entitled "The Free State - A History and Place-Names Study of Livingston Parish" by the members of the Livingston Parish American Revolution Bicentennial Committee in cooperation with the Livingston Parish Police Jury and the Louisiana American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, 1976. Reprinted by permission. Dedicated to the memory of Reuben Cooper and Raymond Riggs. LIVINGSTON became the parish seat in 1941 when the courthouse was moved there from Centerville (Springville). The town is situated approximately in the north-central part of the parish, about 25 miles east of Baton Rouge on US Highway 190. Livingston is located in the heart of the heavily forested pine- tree-growing area of the parish. Although numerous other trees are common in and around Livingston, particularly hardwoods in the low areas, it was the pine, then as now, that attracted the lumber companies to Livingston. In fact, the town was brought into existence by a lumber company, the Lyon Lumber Company of Chicago, Illinois. The Lyon Lumber Co. was incorporated in Louisiana on January 3, 1903, as the Lyon Cypress Lumber Company. The company's domicile was Chicago and the amount of the capital stock was $2,000,000. (1) The 1911 edition of the Book of Chicagoans lists John William Gary (born 1859) as president and John Kellogg Lyon as secretary of the Lyon Cypress Lumber Co. The Lyon Lumber Company established a sawmill at Garyville in St. John the Baptist parish, directly south of Livingston, to cut cypress logs into lumber. The company extended a logging railroad into the cypress swamp north of Garyville to carry the logs to the mill. As the cypress was cut, the railroad was extended northward. By 1915, the company had reached the Amite River and the end of the cypress. According to the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jean M. Eyraud and Donald J. Millet, authors of the book A History of St. John the Baptist Parish, it was at this time that "the mill was thoroughly remodeled so as to cut pine and hardwood." The name of the company was also changed at this time to Lyon Lumber Co. (2) It was also in 1915 on June 4 that the Garyville Northern Rail- road Company was incorporated under the general laws of Louisiana. This railroad was, no doubt, incorporated as a separate company by the owners of the Lyon Lumber company to enable them to make the maximum profit possible. By having a separate railroad company, the could charge freight fees and also deduct any losses which might accrue from the operation of their passenger train. These contentions seem to borne out by a copy of a valuation report on the Garyville Northern Railroad Co. which was prepared by the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission. The copy is dated March 3, 1926, and was obtained from Judge Leon Ford III of Hammond. It states in part that "the carrier is an industrial railroad, controlled in the interest of the Lyon Lumber Company. The principal traffic is lumber and forest products, the bulk of which is furnished by the controlling industry." Under equipment, the report states that "the equipment owned by the carrier consists of two passenger train cars. In addition, one steam locomotive is leased from the Lyon Lumber Co." Regardless of the original intentions of the incorporators of the Garyville Northern, their first objective in Livingston Parish was to acquire an appropriate crossing location with the Baton Rouge to Hammond railroad, which was then known as the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, now the Illinois Central Gulf. Since most of the Lyon Lumber Co.'s land holdings in Livingston Parish were obtained from the Frost-Johnson Lumber Co. and these were generally cen- tered around the old town of Doyle, now a part of Livingston, the company had wanted to purchase land in Doyle. However, according to Mr. Harrison McCullough, a former employee of the Lyon Lumber Co., the company was unable to acquire enough land for their facilities in the existing town of Doyle, which was laid out in lots soon after the Baton Rouge, Hammond & Eastern Railroad was completed in 1908. They therefore selected the vacant land just west of Doyle as the site for their new facilities which included, among other things, a railroad station, a coal chute, and repair sheds. (3) The present north-south road from Livingston through Frost to Verdun, State Highway 63, occupies the old Garyville Northern roadbed. By train, the town of Garyville was 35 miles south of Livingston. The town was entirely company-owned by an affiliate of the Lyon Lumber Co., the Garyville Land Co., Inc. It was surveyed into lots by E.G. Freiler, C.E. and Surveyor, in April, 1917. (4) Mr. McCullough said a provision was even made for a park when the town was laid out. Today the park site is occupied by the courthouse complex. The extent to which Livingston was a company town can be seen from the following remarks by Mrs. McCollough, "When all the timber was cut, the company closed and everyone moved away (about 1931) except about twelve families. The company sold everything - they even sold our church." The town was, without a doubt, named for the parish, which was named for Edward Livingston. However, it is not known who gave it the name or when the name Livingston was given to the town. The post office was established there on August 7, 1917, with Edwin A. Leland as the first postmaster. Ben Singletary was appointed on Jan. 9, 1918; Daisy Busby, Nov. 5, 1918; and M. Gayle Magee, Nov. 27, 1920. Her name was changed to McCullough by marriage. Postal records after 1930 have not yet been collected. The town was incorporated on November 4, 1955, with the following officials: Winston Hoover, Mayor; Victor Smart; Fuqua Sibley and Willie Lee Duffy, Aldermen; and Johnnie Sartwell, Marshall. (5) As in the past, the harvesting of forest products still plays a major role in the economic life of the town and, in fact, the major employer near Livingston today is Crown Zellerbach Corp. ----------------- (1) Report of the Secretary of State, State of Louisiana, January 1, 1905. (2) Eyraud, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jean M. and Donald J. Millet, A History of St. John the Baptist Parish, The Hope Haven Press, Marrero, La., 1939, p. 49. (3) Personal interview by Clark Forrest, Jr. with Mr. and Mrs. Harrison McCollough on December 6, 1971. Mr. McCullough was born on June 6, 1896. (4) Map of Town of Livingston, Livingston Parish Clerk of Court's Office. (5) Sartwell, Annie Lou, "The History of Livingston," n.p., n.d. * * * * *