Abandoned Sulphur, Louisiana

Book excerpt: Sulphur, Louisiana, is a world rich with culture, history, and bayous. This flat swampy territory is riddled with waterways, snaking like veins and arteries between forests filled with crooked cypress trees. Sulphur is home to a Cajun populace, and unlike its more well-known southeastern counterpart, New Orleans, which is predominantly Creole, it was originally settled by Acadians. These French-Canadian settlers were excommunicated during the "Great Expulsion" of the French and Indian War and eventually colonized the Sulphur area. Were it not for the mining boom of the mid-1800s, Sulphur would likely have remained entirely Cajun and without modern infrastructure. The area became a hub of activity after a rich Sulfur deposit was discovered in the 1870s, and industry interest drove railways into this unknown quadrant of America. Sulfur mining continued until the early 1900s, which was subsequently followed by an oil boom and the creation of water channels connecting the town of Sulphur to the Gulf of Mexico, twenty miles away. In the wake of this industrial revolution, many areas, both urban and rural, were left abandoned and in disrepair.