The Charles Brakenridge Lumber Company, Livingston Parish with connections to Orleans Parish, Louisiana File prepared by D.N. Pardue ------------------------------------------------------------------ USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. ------------------------------------------------------------------ >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. THE CHARLES BRAKENRIDGE LUMBER COMPANY was located three miles south of the present town of Albany on the Albany-Springfield Road. The first historical marker in Livingston Parish was erected on this site to comm- emorate the arrival of the first Hungarian settlers. The Brakenridges had begun cutting into the seemingly endless short and long leaf pine forests around 1896. A narrow gauge company railroad, called the "Dummy Line," carried the lumber to Springfield where it went by boat to New Orleans and Gulfport for shipment to Europe. The mill, the company store, and the few worker's houses became the tiny settlement of Maxwell, or Arpadhon (home of the Arpads) as it was known to the Hungarians. In 1916, when all the timber had been cut from the Brakenridge land, the mill closed and the community declined. Albany grew into the main Hungarian center, supported by its surrounding farms and their acres of strawberries. (1) --- Louis C. Bartus ------------- (1) Publication by Southeast Louisiana Agri-dustrial Futurama, 1965, by Dr. Bertram Groene, Assistant Professor of History, Southeastern La. University, Hammond, La. * * *