Bayou Sleeps // Unique Places to Stay
By Cullen Diebold, staff videographer
Bayou Souvenirs // Unique Gifts
by Brandy Dunbar, staff videographer
Bayou Lore // Hauntings
by Ashlyn Verda, staff writer Louisiana’s Bayou Region is rich in haunted history. Over generations, locals have passed down dark tales from the bayou, including legendary haunted swamps and plantation ghost stories. As time passes, and stories become more and more embedded in Cajun culture, the line between fact and folklore begins to blur. One of the most famous hauntings of the Bayou Region is known by students and faculty at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. Ellender Hall, one of the student residence halls on campus, is known for its strange occurrences. According to Megan Henshaw, the assistant hall director, residents claim the dormitory is haunted by Helen Ellender helerself. A portrait hangs in the entrance of the lobby and students say her eyes follow you. Henshaw is also the resident assistant on the sixth floor. She says students have reported lights turning on and off, objects moving on their own, footsteps, and scratching noises. “Some say it’s the ghost of a student who died there in the 1970s,” says Henshaw. “It’s rumored that she fell to her death by jumping out of her sixth-floor window.” Although many students treat this story as fact, The Nicholls Worth reported that there is no record of anyone’s death or suicide in Ellender Hall. Not far from Nicholls is the Laurel Valley Plantation and Historic Village. The village contains cabins that can be seen from the road, and is said to be haunted by apparitions dressed in old-fashioned clothing. Visitors have also captured unexplained “floating lights” in their photos, according to volunteer worker Johnny Thibodaux. Locals are the first to experience these unexplained events. Sometimes, just by taking a shortcut on the way home. Devil’s Swamp, in Schriever, is appropriately named. An old train track runs across the road, allegedly haunted by the ghosts of buried slaves from Acadia Plantation, as well as the ghosts of people murdered or killed on the railroad tracks. When cars park or stop over the tracks, they reportedly begin to violently shake. There have also been claims of stalled cars, windows fogging, and handprints appearing on the windows. Ducros Plantation is also located in Schriever. The property is now privately owned by Richard Bourgeois and Angela Cheramine, who have restored the home. Dating back to 1802, no unusual deaths have been reported, but locals have passed on its ghoulish tale. “It’s not certain, but there is said to have been a young child who accidentally drowned in a nearby well and listeners can hear cries,” says Cheramine. Cheramie says the most common activity reported is inexplicable sounds. When they were restoring the house, carpenters claimed to hear footsteps from the main hall. Richard himself has heard a strange dragging noise on the upper gallery. Some supernatural experiences happen a little too close to home for locals. Coteau Road, located in Houma, is known by locals for having apparitions that wander the fields at night. More common sightings happen around metal sheds that can be seen from the road. The metal sheds and surrounding property belong to the grandfather of Houma resident Glynn Prestenbach. The road is very curvy in some areas and Prestenbach says many people have been injured or killed. Over the years, he has helped repair fences up and down Coteau Road, but has never seen anything unusual. “We have lived on Coteau road all my life and I will be the first to say it is haunted,” says Amber Bourgeois. “I have witnessed a man, a little boy, and a lady walking across the street. It doesn’t scare me though, they don’t seem to mess with anyone.” Located near the bottom of Houma and isolated from civilization, a historic ridge lies southwest of Bayou Dularge near Lake Decade. Mauvais Bois Ridge, is the source of nightmares that have been passed down by generations of United Houma Nation families. Mauvais Bois, named after a French term for “bad woods,” has been haunted since Vincent Gombi, Jean Lafitte’s battle companion, discovered the ridge. According to Nicholls State University Louisiana History Professor, Steve Michot, Gombi was trying to find a route near the Mississippi River during the Battle of New Orleans. “American Indians living on the ridge helped Gombi sink a British ship called the Josephine,” says Michot. “They cut down cypress trees from the woods so a barricade could be formed and the British could not cross Bayou Penchant.” To this day, it is said that the dead rise from the sunken Josephine and continue to linger over the land. Further down the bayou lies Bayou Sale Road, a long, curvy, and deserted road connecting Dulac to Cocodrie. Also known as LA-57, it is rumored to be one of the most haunted places in Southern Louisiana. Locals are familiar with the stories of a man on the side of the road looking for a ride. According to the locals, when cars slows down to pick him up, he either disappears or the driver notices that he is somehow transparent. The legend also claims that if a driver stops to pick up the ghost, they will receive treasures and good luck in return. “Ever since I was little, I’ve heard strange stories about Bayou Sale Road. I’ve traveled down the road many times and personally, I haven’t seen any ghost,” says Houma native Kate Planchet. “But it is a dangerous place and I get a bad feeling when I have to drive it by myself.” Local legends about hauntings are often passed down from generation to generation and have become a part of the Bayou Region culture. Although it has become difficult to determine folklore from fact, there is no denying that locals are interested in the unexplained. Many of these locations can be accessed for free and seen from the road, but simply stopping by and talking to the locals is where the real adventure begins. A dangerous curve in Bayou Sale Road that is surrounded by marshlands. Trees lining the curve of Coteau Road.
Scenic Drives // Louisiana Trails and Byways
by Brandy Dunbar, staff videographer
Bayou Welcome // Cajun Coast Center
by Wes Barnett, staff videographer
Kid Scene // Bayou Country Children’s Museum
by Sydney Moxley, staff videographer
On the Water // Paddle Bayou Lafourche
by Wes Barnett, staff videographer
A Different History // Whitney Plantation
by Trevor Johnson, features editor Southern plantations have long been tourist stops for curious travelers from around the world — most offering wedding services, detailed accounts of wealthy slaveholders, and cheap memorabilia. However, Whitney Plantation, located in Wallace, LA, breaks the mold by giving an unflinching look into the lives of its former slaves. “Our mission is to tell the story of the enslaved people,” says Joy Banner, the director of communications at Whitney Plantation. “Other plantations talk about slavery, but we are the only plantation museum with an almost exclusive focus on slavery.” Whitney Plantation stands on a grassy plot of land near a levee of the winding Mississippi River. Visitors can walk the grounds through a guided tour, Whitney’s main attraction. The tour, which has a variety of admission prices, lasts about 90 minutes, and gives visitors the opportunity to explore slave quarters, a church, a historical blacksmith’s workshop, and more. The tour also includes visiting a memorial to the slaves who worked the plantation. “In addition to telling the history of slavery, Whitney Plantation serves as a memorial to the slaves who worked here, which can be a painful subject,” says Sydnee Council, a tour guide at Whitney. “Some people cry. Some people get angry.” Statues of enslaved children, creatively depicted as they would have appeared on the day of the plantation’s emancipation, dot the grounds in various locations, such as sitting in church pews, or perched solemnly on the porch of a slave cabin, their dangling legs forever captured mid-swing. Over the course of the tour, their unblinking gaze forces visitors to confront one of America’s greatest wounds. After the tour, visitors may keep their tour pass. Each tour pass contains a unique account from one of the slaves who worked the plantation. Whitney also offers a free exhibit, which details the general history of slavery in America, inside its main building. Although plantation tourism may seem like a modern affair, plantations have received tourists since the 1800s. “Plantations became a tourist destination as early as the 1830s,” says Stuart Tully, a history professor at Nicholls State University. “There were grand tours going around the South, with visitors from Europe and elsewhere. Even when they were working plantations, there was a small element of tourism.” According to Tully, plantation tourism dipped during the Civil War, and wouldn’t fully return until around the 1930s. The version that returned, with the veneration and reverence of “Southern heritage,” is the version that is most recognizable today. “It came back because of financial necessity, coupled with the lost cause mythos,” says Tully. “The idea that you’re buying into this idea of the Antebellum South, with Spanish moss, and fans, and ladies. That’s when you really start getting into the imagined past. They saw imagining the past as profitable.” Whitney Plantation aims to dispel the “imagined past” of Southern plantation culture, most commonly depicted in the film Gone with the Wind. Although the plantation has stood since 1752, it was bought by John Cummings in 1999, who, according to Banner, began transforming the plantation into the institution it is today. When Cummings bought the plantation, he also received several volumes of research. That research, combined with his reading of slave narratives, inspired Cummings to craft an educational experience focusing on the lives of slaves. After about 15 years of restoration, Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public as an informative journey through the lives of America’s most forgotten voices. “People want nostalgia,” says Banner. “We don’t do nostalgia at Whitney Plantation. That’s a fantasy. That’s a fairy tale.” For more details about Whitney Plantation and their tour, visit https://www.whitneyplantation.com/.
Demographics // Bayou Stats
Water Sport // Fishing Like a Local
by Sam Gruenig, video editor