Ponchatoula, The Curve on Pine Street, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Sandra McLellan, Mar. 2007
Special thanks to Jim Perrin for donating it to the archives.

************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************

THE CURVE ON PINE STREET

BY JIM PERRIN, Local Historian

Have you ever wondered why some things are the way they are?  For example, why does 
Pine Street, Ponchatoula's main street, run strait as an arrow through town before 
making a very noticeable turn to the right at the site of the Gabriel's Building 
Supply Store?  Motorists most often notice this curve when attempting to enter Pine 
Street from Gabriel's when there is less reaction time available because of cars 
coming around the curve.  Some have uttered unprintable remarks concerning the 
increased traffic and the curve in the street that limits the vision of oncoming 
vehicles.

The answer of why this strait street makes a sudden turn here goes back to 1853 
when James Clark began surveying the new community he called Ponchatoula.  Clark 
and his business partner William Benson had purchased from the state of Louisiana 
the one mile section of land that became the town of Ponchatoula.  Clark laid out 
the town in the grid pattern used throughout much of the United States and had the 
main street of the new development run east west through the town just south of 
where he located the train depot.

One of the problems facing Clark in surveying the town was how to begin laying out 
the grid pattern for his streets.  The railroad tracks of the New Orleans, Jackson 
and Great Northern Railroad Company, for whom Clark worked, ran through his new 
lands, but the tracks did not run exactly north-south.  He had to decide to place 
his street grid exactly on a north-south basis or to begin his grid with streets 
running exactly perpendicular to the railroad tracks.  To lay out the grid on a 
true north-south axis would create a number of thin triangular lots in the center 
or business district of the town but the remaining square blocks of the town would 
be normal squares. 

Instead James Clark chose to run the street grid perpendicular to the railroad 
tracks making regular square blocks near the tracks but creating a number of 
fractional squares at the edges of his town.

Once he made the easy decision on how to start his grid pattern, Clark had to set 
about to make his main street through the town (Pine Street) the center of the 
local road network.  Clark surveyed Pine Street, and had the trees cut through the 
section that he owned, although the stumps and roots in the roadway continued to be 
a problem for wagons for some time.

The existing road east-west road from Madisonville to Springfield ran through the 
southern edge of Ponchatoula, but traffic and business was quickly directed to the 
middle of Clark's new town to access the train depot and the several stores which 
sprang up nearby.

Because the railroad tracts did not exactly run north-south, Clark's east-west 
streets such as Pine Street did not exactly run east-west.  After leaving Selcer's 
Creek east of Ponchatoula, the new Madisonville-Springfield Road ran strait into 
and through Ponchatoula to its western corporate limits.  However, if the road 
continued in a strait line at the angle in which it ran through Ponchatoula, the 
roadway would soon enter the swamp south of town.  Clearly the angle of the roadway 
had to be corrected to more of a true east-west course. 

The correction to the direction of Pine Street was made where Clark's town of 
Ponchatoula ended.  The town's original corporate limits were located about where 
the eastern driveway entering the Gabriel's store is located.  The road was then 
made to curve to the right (northwards) and thereafter ran strait west for well 
over a mile until it neared the area around the Ponchatoula River west of town.

Thus Pine Street, which runs strait through Ponchatoula before making a noticeable 
curve at Gabriel's, is laid out in this way because of a decision made a century 
and a half ago by Ponchatoula's founding father. 

 Anyone with questions, comments, or suggestions for future articles, may contact 
Jim Perrin at 386-4476.