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St. Joseph, Louisiana

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The Tensas Parish Library at 135 Plank Road in St. Joseph is housed on the ground floor of this former residence, built c. 1858 by a local merchant and partially restored in 1964. The upstairs contains the Plantation Museum.[1]
Plank Road is the "main street" of St. Joseph.
St. Joseph Town Hall at 125 Plank Road
Consolidated Tensas High School in St. Joseph
Tensas Academy at 418 Louisiana State Highway 128 opened in 1970 in St. Joseph.
Sanctuary of First United Methodist Church of St. Joseph at 440 Newton Road. Businessman Robert J. Lancaster was a charter member of the church and served on its administrative board.
St. Joseph Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist congregation located at 711 Plank Road across from Tensas High School in St. Joseph.
St. Joseph is the entry point to popular Lake Bruin State Park.
A fashionable gated house of the Baur family on Lake Bruin east of St. Joseph
Gazebo at the end of Plank Road in St. Joseph

St. Joseph is a town in and the parish seat of Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States.[2] The population was 1,340 at the 2000 census, but it declined by 12.2 percent to 1,176 in 2010. The African American majority increased from 69 percent in 2000 to 77.4 percent in 2010.[3]

History

Unique for the Deep South, St. Joseph was planned and constructed in 1843 along a New England-style village green. The downtown along Plank Road is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[4]

Near the conclusion of the Civil War, when Louisiana became part of the Department of Mississippi, St. Joseph served as the chief route across the Mississippi River. According to the historian John D. Winters in his The Civil War in Louisiana, "Such a strong force of Confederate cavalry occupied the Mississippi side opposite St. Joseph that all Federal attempts to close the transit in January [1865] ended in failure."[5]

In 1879, the Jesse James gang robbed two stores in far western Mississippi, at Washington in Adams County and Fayette in Jefferson County. The gang absconded with $2,000 cash in the second robbery and took shelter in abandoned cabins on the Kemp Plantation south of St. Joseph. The posse attacked and killed two of the outlaws but failed to capture the entire gang. Among the deputies was Jefferson B. Snyder, later a long-serving district attorney in northeastern Louisiana. Jesse James would live another three years until his demise in, coincidentally, another St. Joseph in northwestern Missouri.[6]

St. Joseph is the entry community to Lake Bruin State Park located on Lake Bruin, a relatively clear oxbow lake of the nearby Mississippi River.

On August 13, 2013, a 20-year-old man entered the St. Joseph branch of Tensas State Bank, taking three bank employees hostage. He killed two of the hostages after releasing the third.

Political matters

When Tensas Parish was incorporated in 1901 the planter and businessman William Mackenzie Davidson became the first mayor and held the position until his accidental death in January 1930.[7] Davidson was a founder and the general manager of the powerful Panola Company, an agricultural entity in St. Joseph which controlled at one point ten thousand acres of valuable farmland. He sat on the board of the Bank of St. Joseph, of which he later became the president. He worked to bring the USDA Agricultural Experiment Station to St. Joseph and lobbied for construction of the Mississippi River bridge at Natchez, Mississippi.[8]

Edward L. Brown, Sr. was born in October 20, 1952 to son of Leon and Beatrice Brown. He graduated from Grambling State University and is married to Betty S. Brown; the couple has four children. Edward L. Brown, Sr. was the first African American mayor of St. Joseph, unseating the long-term white incumbent, Whitfield Jones (February 18, 1929 - August 11, 2013) in the nonpartisan blanket primary on October 7, 2000. Brown polled 447 votes (64.9 percent) to Jones' 242 (35.1 percent).[9] In the November 6, 2012 election, Brown secured his fourth term with 384 votes (57.7 percent) over Leslie Dandridge Durham, a fellow Democrat who polled 282 votes (42.3 percent).[10] Jones was a native of Baskin in Franklin Parish, a graduate of Louisiana State University, a fighter pilot with the United States Air Force, and the owner of Casey's Department Store in St. Joseph.[11]

Prior to 1968, each parish regardless of population had at least one member sitting in the Louisiana House of Representatives. The last member to represent only Tensas Parish was Democrat S. S. DeWitt of Newellton and later St. Joseph. DeWitt represented Tensas Parish from 1964 to 1968, and then from 1968 to 1972, he and Lantz Womack of Winnsboro together represented Franklin, Tensas, and Madison parishes. Womack defeated DeWitt in the 1971 primary; DeWitt later switched to Republican affiliation.

Aging water system

In December 2012, St. Joseph residents were placed under an advisory to boil their drinking water because of problems with the aging water system in the municipality. A mechanical failure at the town treatment plant caused a sudden drop in the water supply; then in March 2013, a water main cracked. There are also leaks at the base of the city water tower. State Senator Francis C. Thompson, whose district includes Tensas Parish, is seeking emergency funding for repairs to the system, which serves about seven hundred customers.[12] The town has so far failed to obtain an approved town audit for the financial year ending 2015 to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's Office to enable progress on the funds. In 2015, it received $553,000 in grants towards the issue, and is over $6 million is available once the town's audit is approved by the Auditor's Office.[13]

Education

Tensas High School, a consolidation of three schools, Joseph Moore Davidson High School in St. Joseph, Newellton High School in Newellton, and Waterproof High School in Waterproof, began operating in the fall of 2006 on the Davidson campus. The Tensas Parish School Board has attempted to improve educational quality by focusing on one high school for the entire parish, the smallest in population in Louisiana. Troubles broke out at the school on November 2, 2006, and fourteen students were arrested by the sheriff's department.[14] Overt tensions thereafter subsided.

In August 1970, Tensas Academy, a private school, opened in St. Joseph during the first semester of school desegregation. Civic leader Robert J. Lancaster was also a charter member of the Tensas Academy board. [citation needed]

Geography

St. Joseph is located at 31°55′7″N 91°14′18″W / 31.91861°N 91.23833°W / 31.91861; -91.23833 (31.918513, -91.238284).[15]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.9 square mile (2.3 km²), all land.

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1880486—
1890473−2.7%
190071751.6%
19107403.2%
1920734−0.8%
193086417.7%
19401,09626.9%
19501,21811.1%
19601,65335.7%
19701,86412.8%
19801,687−9.5%
19901,517−10.1%
20001,340−11.7%
20101,176−12.2%
2015 (est.)1,058[16]−10.0%
U.S. Decennial Census[17]

As of the census[18] of 2000, there were 1,340 people, 500 households, and 337 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,505.2 people per square mile (581.3/km²). There were 607 housing units at an average density of 681.9 per square mile (263.3/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 68.58% African American, 29.78% White, 0.22% Asian, 1.04% from two or more races, 00.07% Native American, and 0.30% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.75% of the population.

There were 500 households out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.2% were married couples living together, 25.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 29.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.29.

In the town the population was spread out with 30.5% under the age of 18, 10.4% from 18 to 24, 26.0% from 25 to 44, 19.7% from 45 to 64, and 13.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 83.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.4 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $19,539, and the median income for a family was $22,935. Males had a median income of $22,321 versus $15,288 for females. The per capita income for the town was $9,049. About 33.0% of families and 37.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 47.5% of those under age 18 and 33.3% of those age 65 or over.

Notable people

References

  1. ^ "Tensas Parish Library". librarytechnology.org. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
  2. ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  3. ^ "Population of the City of St. Joseph, Louisiana". censusviewer.com. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
  4. ^ Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, St. Joseph, historical marker, St. Joseph, Louisiana, 1982
  5. ^ John D. Winters, The Civil War in Louisiana, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963, ISBN 0-8071-0834-0, pp. 413
  6. ^ "Jefferson B. Snyder". New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 15, 1938. Retrieved July 22, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  7. ^ William M. Davidson obituary, Tensas Gazette, January 24, 1930
  8. ^ James Matthew Reonas, Once Proud Princes: Planters and Plantation Culture in Louisiana's Northeast Delta, From the First World War Through the Great Depression, pp. 245-248 (PDF). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Ph.D. dissertation, December 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  9. ^ Louisiana Secretary of State, Primary election Returns, October 7, 2000
  10. ^ "Louisiana election returns, November 6, 2012". staticresults.sos.la.gov. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  11. ^ "Whitfield Jones obituary". obitsforlife.com. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
  12. ^ "Funds sought to fix St. Joseph's water system, May 10, 2013". Monroe News-Star. Retrieved May 11, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ "Water woes plague St. Joseph". The News Star. Retrieved February 8, 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  14. ^ Monroe News-Star, November 3, 2006
  15. ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
  16. ^ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015". Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  17. ^ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  18. ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
  19. ^ Matthew Reonas, Once Proud Princes: Planters and Plantation Culture in Louisiana's Northeast Delta, From the First World War Through the Great Depression, pp. 262-263 (PDF). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Ph.D. dissertation, December 2006. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
  20. ^ Henry E. Chambers, History of Louisiana, Vol. 2 (Chicago and New York City: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925, p. 71)
  21. ^ "Membership of the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2012: Tensas Parish" (PDF). legis.la.gov. Retrieved July 14, 2013.
  22. ^ "Membership in the Louisiana State Senate, 1880-2012" (PDF). legis.state.la.us. Retrieved July 15, 2013.
  23. ^ Tensas Gazette, November 24, 1916
  24. ^ "James E. Paxton". sixthda.com. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
  25. ^ "Membership in the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2012" (PDF). legis.state.la.us. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
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