CHAPTER 23

Early Patterns of Manufacturing

By Brandon S. Kelley, Jacob Barron and Joel Barron

        Louisiana has become industrially important only in the present century.  Most of this recent industrial development has been based on the exploitation of the state’s natural resources, particularly petroleum, natural gas, sulphur, salt, and forest products.  In the previous two centuries, there was some milling of lumber, extraction of salt, refining of sugar, and ginning of cotton, but no more than was the case of every neighboring state.  In some instances, Louisiana lagged behind its neighbors, as in the commercial spinning and waving of textiles, which has never been an important industry in this state.

        Louisiana has more than 3,800 manufacturing and processing plants.  The alumina plant at Baton Rouge extracts alumina from bauxite shipped from Jamaica and Surinam.  A plant at Chalmette makes aluminum from the alumina.  Chemical plants manufacture more than 700 products, including rubber and rayon.  Huge petroleum refineries operate at Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles.  Natural-gas fields near Monroe provide the raw materials for carbon black.  Only Texas produces more carbon black than Louisiana.

        Lumber was one of the first exports from Louisiana, but it amounted to little prior to the late nineteenth century.  Many sugar refineries operate near New Orleans.  Sugar processing began about 1795, but the largest refineries, dependent in part on imported brown sugar, came into being after the Civil War.  About 35 rice mills clean and polish rice in the southwest.  Crowley is called “The Rice City of America,” because of its importance as a rice-milling center.  Cotton gins expanded operations to meet local demand.  Cotton gins operate in nearly every city of the cotton belt.  In 1870 there were two cotton mills in Louisiana; in 1894 there were four.  But, as already suggested, textile manufacturing in Louisiana was never important.  Cleaning and polishing rice became a considerable industry only after the center of production switched from the river to the prairies of southwestern Louisiana late in the nineteenth century.  Although processing of cottonseed for oil began in 1835, it was relatively unimportant until after the Civil War.  About 20 factories in this area press cottonseed oil and cake from the seeds separated by the gins.

        Commercial fish production in Louisiana ranks among the highest in the United States.  Fishermen catch over $20,000,000 worth of fish and shrimp annually.  Louisiana leads all other states in shrimp production, with more than 75,800,000 pounds a year.  The state harvests about 9,300,000 pounds of oysters every year.  Oyster-packing industries center in Houma, which is sometimes called “The Oyster City of the South.”

        Louisiana leads in the production of muskrat fur.  Trappers sell more than 1,330,000 muskrat pelts a year.  In 1930, breeders brought a few coypu into Louisiana from Argentina.  Coypu is a small, beaverlike water rodent.  Today, nearly 400,000 of their pelts, called nutria, go to fur markets every year.

        Railroads expanded rapidly in Louisiana as New Orleans increased in importance as a port.  By 1883, New Orleans had rail connections with all the major cities in the United States.  Foreign commerce in the city increased even more after the Panama Canal was completed in 1914.

        The discovery of great mineral resources in the early 1900’s stimulated industrial expansion.  Fields of sulfur and petroleum created many new industries.  The first sulphur was produced in 1905.  The natural-gas field near Monroe opened in 1916, further enlarging sources of inexpensive power.  Trunk-line railroads spread into every section of the state, and roads were improved.

        During the administration of Governor John M. Parker (1920-24), the state launched a giant program to improve public works.  Road building began to lift Louisiana out of the mud of its dirt roads.  Parishes improved their school buildings and educational programs.  A disastrous flood struck northern and south-central Louisiana in 1927, causing millions of dollars worth of property damage.  That same year, the federal government joined with Louisiana in building vast flood-control projects.