Outdoors—by Ross McGehee
Texas Road
There are two very old draglines sitting on opposite sides of the Texas Road in Tensas Parish, Louisiana. Most folks driving past would not even notice them. To some, they would be just some old machines, sitting in the weeds, rusting away. And actually that would be correct, I suppose. But where they are and what they are symbolizes something far more profound than rusty iron. In an age where keyboards and remote controls are tools we rely on daily, it is easy to forget what got us to that point. Even further back, we can draw from the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson and his Manifest Destiny to start the opening of the country west of the big river.
First of all, to those who don’t know what a dragline is, you are excused. You’ve seen them on construction sites in years past and probably called them “cranes” by mistake. They can be used as such but also have the ability to drag a steel scoop full of mud or dirt from a ditch where few other machines can go. There is not a blinking light, air conditioner, toggle switch, float-ride seat, or radio on any of them. Just LOTS of levers and pedals to engage the series of winches and brakes that fling the bucket out for another bite and draw it back close to be lifted and emptied one more time. Not many of the machines are used any longer since the advent of large hydraulic rigs that do the same job much faster. So how is all of this symbolic of anything that anyone cares about?
After the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent expedition by Lewis and Clark, masses of settlers obviously headed west. Many crossed into the west by way of routes to and from St. Louis, but a tremendous number made the trip by crossing the Mississippi River and landing at Waterproof, Louisiana. Accounts contend that the ferries originated at Rodney, Mississippi, and one has to realize that ferrying entailed more than a mere “crossing” since Rodney was and is upriver from Waterproof by some miles. Nevertheless, leaving the river and heading west on horseback, on foot, or in a wagon, through a swamp on what was loosely referred to as roads that followed old buffalo trails along high ground, these frontiersmen were on the “Texas Road.” Twelve-plus miles from the big river, there was a crossing on the Tensas River made possible by the presence of a huge deposit of mussel shells. The hard-bottom crossing made the trip to Sicily Island and on to the Red River at Nachitoches possible.
How many countless faces traveled the Texas Road? Where did they end up? How many died along the way? How many gave up too early? How many went all the way to the Pacific? Or Mexico? What became of them? Does anyone in Texas have a written diary or account of the trip? Seeing the swamp as it is today, there is no escaping the wonder of what it had to have been like way back then.
Today, a paved road exists along Choctaw Bayou pretty much on the original path that the settlers took It turns to gravel and then, miles later, abruptly ends. Soybean, corn, and cotton fields flank the road along with several beautiful old homes dating back to the plantation days of the 1800s. Perhaps some settlers had the wisdom, or the tolerance of malaria, to decide that they had gone far enough at that point. Perhaps existing land grants precluded even more settlers from stopping. Eventually, on the higher ground, forests were cleared by axe and saw, and land came into production. The topography of Tensas Parish is somewhat unique in that it is high on the East and West sides and low in the middle. Consequently, water had nowhere to go if rains persisted or the Mississippi overflowed its banks, so farms on the higher ground had more value than those that were more flood prone. Draining the low lands by digging ditches with mules was a tedious and expensive task when the farms were barely producing enough to just remain in business. It obviously took a Herculean effort on every plantation. Then came the draglines!
Though it may not have been as dramatic as moving thousands of people and their possessions west to unseen and unmapped lands, in the twentieth century, draining the mosquito infested backwaters of lands in close proximity to the Mississippi River opened up vast tracts for improvement. So many people had walked right through some of the most productive land in the new nation seeking something better, and at the time they were probably justified. But look at it now—150 years later!
Someone with no experience clearing or draining land cannot have a full appreciation of the hours of hard physical labor required, even with the benefit of machines. Someone had to build the first trail to get the machines into the forest. Someone had to leave home very early in the morning to drive far off the blacktop, frequently through incredibly bad road conditions, to spend the day slinging mud through the palmettos to drain the swamps. The operators of the machines addressed mechanical difficulties on the spot. No big service trucks with hydraulic hoists existed. If an engine had to be repaired, a tripod of hand-chopped poles would be erected to lift it out. Fuel was delivered in barrels that were pumped out by hand. No breeze at all blows through the woods, so heat and humidity were accompanied by hordes of mosquitoes. There was no Thinsulate clothing for the cold weather either. And there are few machines as frustrating as a dragline to operate! Imagine tying a rope to the handle of a bucket, then tossing it into the yard and attempting to retrieve ANYTHING with it! Now use the same theory to dig a trench precisely the correct size and depth for a mile! And make it straight. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
As we look at how successful we have been with our labors, there is evidence that we have come full circle as a society. Some landowners have begun to reforest their fields and stop up the ditches for wildlife habitats. We have reached a point of wealth in this country wherein the land is more valuable for a place to hunt than it is for producing crops! And some of it is easy to justify with some soils being too problematic to be farmed. But I know VERY few men who picked up roots by hand or hand pumped 100 gallons of fuel into a bulldozer every morning and came back later to plant trees on the same land.
So when I look at those two tired old machines on the Texas Road, obsolete and never to run again, I have to think of all of the hours that someone spent on them continuing or building on the dream that Thomas Jefferson had. I think of the people generations ago, the Nation Builders that left every thing they had and the ones that took what little they had along with them to traverse the El Camino Trail, heading for something that they had only heard about. I think about how their descendants are still improving on the lands that were settled out West all those years ago, just as we are still shaping the land they passed through.
