The Opelousas courier., 1892-08-20
Railroad from Ponchatoula
to Houston.
lOpelousas Real Estate Journal

In publishing the advantages of a
country to the attention of the world
it is somtimes customary to suggest
improvements ON the old order of
things and to predict what would fol-
low the new order of events predicated
on the completion of these improve
ments. In writing up the attractions
of this section it has occurred to the
writer that if such an enterprise could
be originated and put under Roadway,
as the construction of q line of railroad
from u point, say Hammond on Pom
chtoula, on the Illinois Central Rail
road to Opelousas and thence to Hous-
ton, that manifold advantages would
result not only to the inhabitants OF
the section contiguous 10 the proposed
route, but that it would constitute an
important feeder to h64d%llinois Cen
trail system of railroads, and give it a
line of it's own connecting it with the
great Western system of railroads
which centre at Houston. This
road would run through one of the
portions of this State where natural
resources are not surpassed by any
territory of similar extent in the South.
1t would traverse the pineries of east.
ern Louisiana, the sugar and rice fields
along the Mississippi river, the forests
of cypress and hard wood of the Mis-
sissippi bottoms, the rice. cotton and
sugar section of our prairies and ha.
y0us and the almost virgin forests of
pine and hard wood of western Lou
isiana and eastern Texas, opening up
a vast territory remote from existing
lines of transportation for settlement
and developing therein a business in
lumber and other articles that would
prove remunerative to the carrier as
we'll as the producer the whole year
round. 1t would invite the attention
of the home-seeker and investor to a
country where land is cheap and where
the opportunities for money making
are awaiting the influx of capital suffi-
Gent to develop and utilize the natural
there to be found. Another
advantage to be derived by the
Illinois Central from the construction
of this road is that it would render this
immense corporation independent of
the Gould and Huntington systems in
its western connections, 1t seems to
us that by the exhibition of the proper
push and enterprise the officers of the
Illinois Central could be induced to en-
terrain a proposition of this nature and
finally, after an investigation and
demonstration of the advantages which
would accrue to their road, be pre-
vailed upon to bnild IA road over or
near the route suggested in this article.
The method by which this enterprise
should be presented to the attention
of this corporation, in our 0humble
Judgment, would be to arouse unanim-
ity of opinion in the minds of the PEG
pie living along the proposed route
and have the inhabitants of the par,
ishes interested in its construction,
after the proper agitation of the sub
ject, hold a railroad convention at
some accessible point and memorialize
the railroad people to grant them a
in order TO enable them to
make a proper presentation of this
to them. This article is but
little pebble cast into the sea, and
the ripple resulting from it may pro-
duce as little commotion and soon loose
it's force, and its lines of demarcation
may grow less and less, until it be-
comes COMPOUNDED and lost in the great
mass of waters that give it birth and
bear it onward, but we hope that by it
we have attracted the thoughtful con
of some one better able to do
the subject justice, and that he will
not only agitate but write up and bring
before the public eye a question fraught
with so much future welfare for this
of the State.