Geography

The quote above is mine and I mean it quite literally. Louisiana has a complex history; the visual landscape is subtle in elevation, and the house types and culture groups that built them are unique to Louisiana. Until the building of the major levee system after the great flood of 1927, the Mississippi river and it's major tributaries were constantly shifting the land; and the geologists tell us that the land within the natural boundries of the river are only 7500 years old!

On the way home view over the levee late fall

On the next page I discuss the unique cultural aspects of Louisiana that makes for unique house types as well.

Riding the Roads

As a young man newly arrived in south Louisiana from the rocky coast of Rhode Island in 1966, I didn’t have a clue where I was! Over the years, I have had the opportunity to travel as a result of my work with old buildings, and it takes me to rural areas. I call it “riding the roads” As a “visual” person, I am tied to my surroundings through my eyes. (Something words never did for me when I was young) Through the writing of geographers -- most importantly, Fred B. Kniffen of LSU, my experience was given substance and meaning.

"It appears to me that since we humans are a part of the cultural landscape and even have ideas of changing it, it might be well for us to discover how it came to be and how it changes and resists change how it spreads and contracts. It is most urgent that no time be lost in recording what remains. Expanding cities and exploding technology destroy the old and transform the folkways and tools common a generation or two ago into museum exhibits. But, aside from the satisfaction to be gained in helping to preserve or record pioneer ways, searching for and discovering an obscure relic of the pioneer past can be just as exciting as prospecting for gold" Fred B, Kniffen