Volume 7 , Issue 23

MORE Murals - Houma, Louisiana...

"The Alva Murals posted on this site have inspired me to share a couple of the ones we have in the older part of our town.

In spite of my Oklahoma roots, I have lived in Houma, Louisiana most of my life. At the tail end of the depression, my parents who grew up near Lamont, Grant Co., OK. I graduated from high school and could find no way to make a living. Mom's Uncle Elmer Martin, son of Sheriff Hugh Martin of Woods County, gave him a job down here on a drilling rig. Part of the rest of the story is the fact that the Okie farm boy did well. When he passed away in 1982 he was a partner in his own oil drilling company, whose rigs set a number of Louisiana drilling records.

At any rate the little sleepy town of Houma that we moved to is now bursting at the seams and Terrebonne Parish (Louisiana calls its counties parishes) now is approaching a population of 110,000 people. It is in the heart of Southeast Louisiana's Cajun Country, and is located about fifty miles from New Orleans, and is on the Gulf of Mexico. South Louisiana is loosing coastal wet lands so fast one can almost hear it go. Louisiana, which is getting no real help from the federal government to stop this process, is estimated to be loosing a piece of land the size of a football field every hour.

The first mural is a dual one... It features a view of Houma's Main Street at the turn of the twentieth century. With the balconies, there is a touch of old New Orleans. It also features the old brick court house which was replaced in the 1930's. Tear up Paradise and put in a parking lot.

The second mural... is a view of the USS Terrebonne Parish, a LST of the U.S. Navy. It saw action during the Vietnam War." -- Charlie   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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