Newellton, Louisiana

Town of Newellton
Town
Newellton, Louisiana, Water Tower
Country	United States
State	Louisiana
Parish	Tensas
Elevation	79 ft (24.1 m)
Coordinates	32°04′22″N 91°14′21″W / 32.07278°N 91.23917°W / 32.07278; -91.23917Coordinates: 32°04′22″N 91°14′21″W / 32.07278°N 91.23917°W / 32.07278; -91.23917
Area	0.9 sq mi (2.3 km2)
- land	0.8 sq mi (2 km2)
- water	0.1 sq mi (0 km2), 11.11%
Population	1,227 (2010)
Density	1,960.2/sq mi (756.8/km2)
Mayor	Timothy Turner (elected 2012) Police Chief Johnny Gales (re-elected 2012)
Timezone	CST
- summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
Postal code	71357
Area code	318
Location in Tensas Parish and the state of Louisiana.
Location of Louisiana in the United States

Lake St. Joseph as seen from behind Britt's Pharmacy in Newellton

Newellton is a town in northern Tensas Parish in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The population is 1,227 in the 2010 census, a decline of 255 persons, or 17 percent, from the 2000 tabulation of 1,482. Newellton in 2010 was 51 percent African American; in earlier census reports it had been 60 to 65 percent black. The average age of the population there is 41 years.^[1]

Newellton is west of the Mississippi River on Lake St. Joseph, an ox-bow lake. Further south toward St. Joseph, the parish seat of government, is another ox-bow lake, Lake Bruin, a part of which is the popular Lake Bruin State Park.

History

Earliest years

The French explorer La Salle passed through the Newellton area in 1682 as he followed the Mississippi River to its mouth near the future New Orleans.

Newellton itself was founded in the early 19th century by the Routh family, for whom the defunct Routhwood Elementary School was named. John David Stokes Newell, Sr., a planter and lawyer in St. Joseph, the seat of Tensas Parish, named the settlement for his father, Edward, a native of North Carolina who relocated to Tensas Parish in 1834.^[2]

John Newell was a Confederate veteran who joined the Tensas Cavalry and fought in 1862 in both Shiloh, Tennessee, and Corinth, Mississippi. In 1864, he married Nannie Newell, a first cousin, and they had four sons. After the American Civil War, he returned to cotton planting on the Cypress Plantation and resumed his legal practice. He promoted public education and was named president of the Tensas Parish School Board in 1866 and again in 1892. He died in St. Joseph and is interred at Vicksburg, Mississippi.^[2]

The Newell Cemetery on Louisiana State Highway 575 offers the history of the Newell family inscribed on a marble archway at the entrance.^[3]

Civil War

During the Civil War on June 4, 1863, Confederate cavalry led by Major Isaac F. Harrison attacked a Negro camp of instruction on Lake St. Joseph, killed the white captain and twelve blacks, and captured 875 others. Harrison retrieved a supply of arms, medicine, and other supplies left behind by the Union.^[4]

South of Newellton is the restored Winter Quarters State Historic Site plantation house, where troops under Union General U.S. Grant spent the winter of 1862-1863, prior to embarking on the blockade of Vicksburg the following spring and summer. Earlier Grant and his men had established temporary residence further north in Lake Providence in what is now East Carroll Parish. Winter Quarters is not mentioned by the historian John D. Winters in his encompassing 1963 work, The Civil War in Louisiana, but he does cover several wartime experiences in Tensas Parish as a whole.

Debt-free municipality

Founded in 1875, Newellton was in 1904 designated a village, with Louis Buckner as the first mayor. Buckner served a single term from 1904 to 1908. On April 4, 1951, under Mayor T. T. Hargrove, Newellton was upgraded to a town through the state Lawrason Act.^[5]

In March 2014, Newellton became debt-free. Long-term alderman Edwin Britt, who operates the town pharmacy, said the community has struggled with declining population and the accompanying revenue sources. The town has an annual operating budget of $400,000 to $500,000. Over recent years, Newellton has lost its hospital, sawmill, and detention center. Most residents are employed in the agricultural sector. Newellton is renovating its town hall, a project already funded, and is launching a $200,000 street improvement plan, funded mostly by grants.^[6]

Political matters

In 2012, the former Newellton mayor, Democrat Alex Davis (born 1942), did not seek a fourth term. The first African American in the position, Davis unseated the 34-year incumbent Edwin G. Preis, Sr.,^[7] a white businessman, in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 7, 2000. Davis received 366 votes (56.8 percent) to Preis' 184 (28.6 percent), and Floyd Aaron "Coonie" McVay's 94 votes (14.6 percent).^[8] A native of Oak Grove in West Carroll Parish, McVay was formerly the Newellton police chief. He died in 2012 at the age of eighty.^[9]

The current mayor is the African-American Democrat Timothy Durell Turner (born 1971), the former District 1 alderman,^[10] who won the election held on December 8, 2012, by a single vote, 217-216, over the Republican candidate, James Carroll Fuller (born 1936), the outgoing District 5 alderman.^[11][12] Fuller, who is white, is a former resident of Braxton, Mississippi, and Denham Springs, Louisiana.^[13] Fuller had led Turner, 259 (44.7 percent) to 207 (35.8 percent), in the higher-turnout primary election held on November 6, with another 113 votes (19.5 percent) then cast for a second Democrat, Knola Ransome.^[14]

Meanwhile, Fuller was among 582 Louisiana elected officials named to Governor Bobby Jindal's "Kitchen Cabinet Leadership Team". Two other Tensas Parish officials appointed to the panel are Assessor Irby Gamble and Coroner Keith D. Butler, both of St. Joseph.^[15]

The Newellton police chief, Johnny Gales (born 1951), a Democrat, was reelected in 2012. There are five municipal alderman, one of whom, Lavone G. Garner from District 5, is a Republican. She was elected to succeed Carroll Fuller, who left the council with his race for mayor.^[16]

As of 2013, there were four police officers and Chief Gales in Newellton, with two marked cars and one unmarked, and eighteen volunteer firefighters. The town clerk is Rhonda King (born 1953).^[17]

Prior to 1968, each parish regardless of population had at least one member in the Louisiana House of Representatives. The last member to represent only Tensas Parish was then Democrat S. S. DeWitt of Newellton and later St. Joseph. DeWitt represented Tensas Parish from 1964–1968, and then from 1968–1972, he and Lantz Womack of Winnsboro, the seat of Franklin Parish, together represented Franklin, Tensas, and Madison parishes. Womack defeated DeWitt in single-member District 20 in the 1971 party primary. Only after leaving office did DeWitt later switch to Republican affiliation.

In 1995, a Baton Rouge attorney, Democrat Phil Preis, son of then Mayor Edwin Preis, was among sixteen gubernatorial candidates who sought to succeed Edwin Washington Edwards. He polled 133,271 (9 percent) of the votes statewide. In Tensas Parish, he received a plurality of the ballots, 1,233 votes (36.9 percent). The eventual winner of the election, Republican Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., polled only 232 votes (6.9 percent) in Tensas Parish in the primary.^[18] When Preis ran again for governor in 1999, he polled 144 votes (4.2 percent) in his native Tensas Parish.^[19]

The former Newellton High School

Newellton High School, which served grades pre-kindergarten-12, had only seventy-four students at the close of the 2005-2006 academic year. The Tensas Parish School Board first voted on May 18, 2006, by a four-to-three margin to keep Newellton High functioning for at least an additional year. Superintendent Carol Shipp Johnson had proposed that the school be closed and that all the Newellton students be bused to St. Joseph. Under the superintendent's proposal, high schools students would have attended Joseph Moore Davidson High School, which serves only grades 7-12 and also had a low enrollment.

Ultimately, it was decided to consolidate Newellton and Davidson schools into Tensas High School, with grades 7-12 at the Davidson campus in St. Joseph, where pupils from the zone of the former Waterproof High School in Waterproof were already in attendance. Violence broke out at the consolidated school on November 2, 2006, when fourteen male students were arrested by the office of Tensas Parish Sheriff Rickey Jones.^[20]

Newellton High had a modern facility, which was upgraded in 1976, and the board was reluctant to abandon a structure still in good condition even though the enrollment numbers could not sustain continuation. The elementary grades continue to operate on the Newellton campus through grade eight. Seventh and eighth graders in Tensas Parish outside of Newellton attend Tensas High School if they are enrolled in public school.

In August 1970, Newellton High School was among the last of Louisiana public schools to be desegregated under federal court orders. William Edward "Bill" Vosburg (born October 13, 1940), a native of New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish, was the principal during the early years of transition. The superintendent at the time was Charles Edgar Thompson (1932–1993), a Tensas Parish native who later accepted a position with the Louisiana Department of Education in Baton Rouge as the deputy superintendent for special education under then Superintendent J. Kelly Nix.^[21]

After the desegregation of Newellton High School, numerous white pupils from throughout Tensas Parish then attended the private school, Tensas Academy in St. Joseph

Geography

Newellton is located at 32°4′22″N 91°14′21″W / 32.07278°N 91.23917°W / 32.07278; -91.23917 (32.072740, -91.239230).^[22]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²), of which 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km²) (12.64%) is water.

Demographics

As of the census^[25] of 2000, there were 1,482 people, 536 households, and 376 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,960.2 people per square mile (752.9/km²). There were 595 housing units at an average density of 787.0 per square mile (302.3/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 34.41% White (49 percent white in 2010 census), 64.71% African American, 0.07% Asian, 0.20% from other races, and 0.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.96% of the population. The racial makeup figures changed drastically in 2010, with the black population declining to 51 percent.^[1]

There were 536 households out of which 37.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.5% were married couples living together, 30.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.7% were non-families. 26.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.19.

In the town the population was spread out with 32.0% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 23.8% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 80.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 72.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $17,457, and the median income for a family was $21,029. Males had a median income of $23,333 versus $14,519 for females. The per capita income for the town was $9,365. About 33.8% of families and 38.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.9% of those under age 18 and 31.9% of those age 65 or over.

Notable people

• Ray R. Allen, public official in Alexandria, Louisiana, was reared in Tensas Parish and graduated from Newellton High School, c. 1937.
• Andrew F. Brimmer (1926-2012), economist and first African American to serve as governor of the Federal Reserve System who was born in Newellton
• Ben Patton Burnside, Sr. (1915-1991), owner of Franklin Plantation north of Newellton
• W. W. Burnside, prominent planter, the mayor of Newellton from 1924 to 1940
• James William "Jim" Davis (1944-2012), Newellton farmer and son of former Governor Jimmie Davis^[26]
• Sarah Dorsey, author, historian, and benefactor of Jefferson Davis, lived at the Routh Plantation near Newellton in the early 1850s.^[27]
• Emmitt Douglas, president of the Louisiana NAACP from 1966 until his death in 1981, was born in Newellton and educated in Tensas Parish public schools before he entered Xavier University in New Orleans.^[28]
• C.B. Forgotston (born in Newellton in 1945; died 2016) was a lawyer in Hammond and a state government watchdog and political activist. Forgotston graduated from Newellton High School in 1962.^[29] He was a frequent guest on The Moon Griffon Show radio talk program.
• Tom Tate Hargrove (1900-1958), Mississippi native, executive vice president of the Tensas State Bank, member of the Tensas Parish School Board and the Louisiana State Parks Commission; he was the mayor of Newellton from 1948 until his death of a stroke at the age of fifty-seven.^[30]
• J. H. Netterville (1879-1943), manager of three area plantations for the Panola Company; member of the Tensas Parish School Board^[31]
• Clyde V. Ratcliff (1879-1952), member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1944 to 1948; planter in Newellton^[32]
• Thomas M. Wade (1860-1929), member of Louisiana House of Representatives from 1888 to 1904, Louisiana State Board of Education, and Tensas Parish School Board; Tensas school superintendent for some twenty years after 1904^[33]

• Leon "Pee Wee" Whittaker, African American trombonist, was born near Newellton. He is among the honorees of the Delta Music Museum in Ferriday in neighboring Concordia Parish. His career took him as far as Canada and Great Britain as well as all along the Mississippi River delta country.^[34]

Gallery

• 
  Numerous businesses in downtown Newellton have been closed for many years.
• 
  The Tensas State Bank building in Newellton
• 
  U.S. Post Office at 930 Verona Street in Newellton
• 
  Newellton Grain Elevator
• 
  Winter Quarters State Historic Site near Newellton
• 
  Dixie Dandy grocery has existed in Newellton since 1967; it is located at 1109 Verona Street at the intersection with U.S. Highway 65.
• 
  The Newellton Place Apartments at 100 Routh Street is among newer housing available in Newellton.
• 
  The historic Newellton Union Church (established 1890) is a nondenominational congregation at 1916 Highway 605.
• 
  First Baptist Church at 1822 Highway 605 in Newellton (2008 photo); then pastor Dennis Campbell
• 
  Renovated First Baptist Church (2010 photo); FBC celebrated its 75th anniversay on August 22, 2010; pastor Scott Byrd (2013)
• 
  The former Newellton High School now houses Newellton Elementary at 400 Verona Street.
• 
  Abandoned Tensas Medical Center on Verona Street in Newellton
• 
  Legion Memorial Cemetery off Louisiana Highway 605 north of Newellton was established in 1943.

References

Further reading

• "John ... and Edward Newell", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 2 (1988), p. 600

External links

• Newellton Progress Community Progress Site for Newellton, LA
• http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060520/NEWS01/605200312/1002
• http://newelltonla.com/

Municipalities and communities of Tensas Parish, Louisiana, United States
Parish seat: St. Joseph
Towns	Newellton St. Joseph Waterproof
Unincorporated communities	Azucena Balmoral Crimea Yucatan Landing