Home of the Steel Magnolias

Home of the Steel Magnolias

Sixty years before the American colonies declared independence from Great Britain, French traders from Canada put down roots in northwest Louisiana—roots carefully nurtured by those who live there today.

Founded in 1714, Natchitoches (pop. 17,865) is the state’s original French colony and the oldest permanent settlement in the land west of the Mississippi River that became the Louisiana Territory in 1803.

Signs of French influence remain in Natchitoches’ 33-block National Historic Landmark District, one of only two such areas in the state. The other is New Orleans’ French Quarter, which Natchitoches’ brick-paved Front Street closely resembles with its lacy wrought-iron balconies, colorful buildings, and ironwork benches.

Or rather, the French Quarter resembles Natchitoches, natives are quick to point out, since their town was founded four years before the Big Easy some 240 miles to the south.

Natchitoches—an American Indian word meaning Place of the Paw-Paw—was established by French-Canadian adventurer Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as a trading post along the Red River to promote commerce with the local tribes and the Spanish colonies in Mexico.

The town’s historic district is sprinkled with French street names, such as Rue Poete, and filled with Creole cottages, as well as Queen Anne-style homes marked by gabled roofs and arched windows. It’s part of Cane River National Heritage Area—a mostly rural, 45,000-acre region known for its historic Creole plantations and unique mixed-blood culture. (Creole refers to descendants of French and Spanish settlers who came to Louisiana before 1807.) Nicknamed the Cote Joyeuse—or Joyous Coast—Congress named it a National Heritage Area in 1994.

Front Street in Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish) owes much of its charm to a group of prominent women from the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches who, in the 1940s, said they would lay down on the brick thoroughfare to prevent it from being paved over. One version of the story says the women actually faced down the bulldozers, but their promise to do it apparently sufficed and the work was stopped—by none other than Gov. Earl Long. When the governor learned 300 women had promised to plant themselves across the bricks, he said, “Let them have their street.”

This passion for preservation was “before it was the popular thing to do,” says Maxine Sutherland, 72, the preservation association’s president for a dozen years. To raise funds the group has sponsored an annual October tour of restored homes for 50 years, led by women in period costume.

They’ve also held a crafts festival in June for three decades at nearby Melrose Plantation, which the association owns and maintains. Established in 1796 by freed slave Marie Therese Coincoin and her children, Melrose served as a writers’ retreat for William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and others in the early 1900s, when “Miss Cammie” Henry owned it.

It’s hard to venture far into Natchitoches without hearing talk of Steel Magnolias, the 1989 movie with Julia Roberts, Sally Field, and Dolly Parton. Filmed in Natchitoches and based on a play by hometown native Robert Harling, it focuses on a group of women at a beauty shop and a young mother who, like Harling’s own sister, died in her 20s from diabetes complications. The term steel magnolias refers to Southern women of strong conviction—the bedrock of Southern society—and residents say the movie showcased their town’s generosity of spirit.

“It shows the strength people found from each other, and how it made them able to step up and face life,” says Sharon Gahagan, whose home at Tauzin Plantation was the setting for the Christmas party in Steel Magnolias. One is reminded of the women who saved the bricks on Front Street.

The movie succeeded, most residents feel, in capturing the town’s strong sense of tradition. Bobby DeBlieux, whose mother’s family arrived in 1718 (his father’s family, late arrivals, came in 1803), owns the 1830 Tante Huppe B&B, named for his ancestor, Suzette Prudhomme Huppe. A former mayor of Natchitoches, DeBlieux wrote its nomination for federal landmark designation in 1974, and he loves to joke about his town’s strong sense of community.

“All these old families are related—you can hardly think about anything without it getting back to you.”

Sharon McDonnell is a writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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