Livingston, Livingston Parish, Louisiana
File prepared by D.N. Pardue
Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives
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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.
LIVINGSTON became the parish seat in 1941 when the courthouse was moved
there from Centerville (Springville). The town is situated approximately
in the north-central part of the parish, about 25 miles east of Baton
Rouge on US Highway 190.
Livingston is located in the heart of the heavily forested pine-
tree-growing area of the parish. Although numerous other trees are
common in and around Livingston, particularly hardwoods in the low areas,
it was the pine, then as now, that attracted the lumber companies to
Livingston. In fact, the town was brought into existence by a lumber
company, the Lyon Lumber Company of Chicago, Illinois.
The Lyon Lumber Co. was incorporated in Louisiana on January 3, 1903,
as the Lyon Cypress Lumber Company. The company's domicile was Chicago
and the amount of the capital stock was $2,000,000. (1) The 1911
edition of the Book of Chicagoans lists John William Gary (born 1859)
as president and John Kellogg Lyon as secretary of the Lyon Cypress
Lumber Co.
The Lyon Lumber Company established a sawmill at Garyville in St.
John the Baptist parish, directly south of Livingston, to cut cypress
logs into lumber. The company extended a logging railroad into the
cypress swamp north of Garyville to carry the logs to the mill. As
the cypress was cut, the railroad was extended northward. By 1915,
the company had reached the Amite River and the end of the cypress.
According to the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jean M. Eyraud and Donald J.
Millet, authors of the book A History of St. John the Baptist Parish,
it was at this time that "the mill was thoroughly remodeled so as
to cut pine and hardwood." The name of the company was also changed
at this time to Lyon Lumber Co. (2)
It was also in 1915 on June 4 that the Garyville Northern Rail-
road Company was incorporated under the general laws of Louisiana.
This railroad was, no doubt, incorporated as a separate company by
the owners of the Lyon Lumber company to enable them to make the
maximum profit possible.
By having a separate railroad company, the could charge freight
fees and also deduct any losses which might accrue from the operation
of their passenger train. These contentions seem to borne out by
a copy of a valuation report on the Garyville Northern Railroad Co.
which was prepared by the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission. The
copy is dated March 3, 1926, and was obtained from Judge Leon Ford III
of Hammond.
It states in part that "the carrier is an industrial railroad,
controlled in the interest of the Lyon Lumber Company. The principal
traffic is lumber and forest products, the bulk of which is furnished
by the controlling industry." Under equipment, the report states that
"the equipment owned by the carrier consists of two passenger train
cars. In addition, one steam locomotive is leased from the Lyon Lumber
Co."
Regardless of the original intentions of the incorporators of the
Garyville Northern, their first objective in Livingston Parish was to
acquire an appropriate crossing location with the Baton Rouge to Hammond
railroad, which was then known as the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad,
now the Illinois Central Gulf.
Since most of the Lyon Lumber Co.'s land holdings in Livingston Parish
were obtained from the Frost-Johnson Lumber Co. and these were generally cen-
tered around the old town of Doyle, now a part of Livingston, the company had
wanted to purchase land in Doyle.
However, according to Mr. Harrison McCullough, a former employee of
the Lyon Lumber Co., the company was unable to acquire enough land for their
facilities in the existing town of Doyle, which was laid out in lots soon
after the Baton Rouge, Hammond & Eastern Railroad was completed in 1908.
They therefore selected the vacant land just west of Doyle as the site
for their new facilities which included, among other things, a railroad
station, a coal chute, and repair sheds. (3) The present north-south road
from Livingston through Frost to Verdun, State Highway 63, occupies the
old Garyville Northern roadbed. By train, the town of Garyville was 35
miles south of Livingston.
The town was entirely company-owned by an affiliate of the Lyon
Lumber Co., the Garyville Land Co., Inc. It was surveyed into lots by
E.G. Freiler, C.E. and Surveyor, in April, 1917. (4) Mr. McCullough
said a provision was even made for a park when the town was laid out.
Today the park site is occupied by the courthouse complex.
The extent to which Livingston was a company town can be seen from
the following remarks by Mrs. McCollough, "When all the timber was cut,
the company closed and everyone moved away (about 1931) except about
twelve families. The company sold everything - they even sold our
church."
The town was, without a doubt, named for the parish, which was
named for Edward Livingston. However, it is not known who gave it the
name or when the name Livingston was given to the town. The post office
was established there on August 7, 1917, with Edwin A. Leland as the
first postmaster.
Ben Singletary was appointed on Jan. 9, 1918; Daisy Busby, Nov. 5, 1918;
and M. Gayle Magee, Nov. 27, 1920. Her name was changed to McCullough
by marriage. Postal records after 1930 have not yet been collected.
The town was incorporated on November 4, 1955, with the following
officials: Winston Hoover, Mayor; Victor Smart; Fuqua Sibley and Willie
Lee Duffy, Aldermen; and Johnnie Sartwell, Marshall. (5)
As in the past, the harvesting of forest products still plays a
major role in the economic life of the town and, in fact, the major
employer near Livingston today is Crown Zellerbach Corp.
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(1) Report of the Secretary of State, State of Louisiana, January 1, 1905.
(2) Eyraud, Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jean M. and Donald J. Millet, A History of St.
John the Baptist Parish, The Hope Haven Press, Marrero, La., 1939, p. 49.
(3) Personal interview by Clark Forrest, Jr. with Mr. and Mrs. Harrison
McCollough on December 6, 1971. Mr. McCullough was born on June 6, 1896.
(4) Map of Town of Livingston, Livingston Parish Clerk of Court's Office.
(5) Sartwell, Annie Lou, "The History of Livingston," n.p., n.d.
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