Frenier: The Cabbage Town the Hurricane Took

Along the western rim of Lake Pontchartrain, in the cypress swamp known as Manchac, there was once a small settlement called Frenier. German immigrants founded it in the mid-eighteen hundreds. They raised cabbage in the mucky swamp soil and became famous for their sauerkraut , Frenier Sauerkraut was shipped by rail to New Orleans and beyond. Cypress loggers also worked the surrounding woods, and for a time the community had its own post office, its school, its seasonal rhythms.

On September twenty-ninth, nineteen fifteen, the New Orleans Hurricane , a Category Four storm , drove a storm surge of thirteen to fifteen feet across the lowlands around Lake Pontchartrain. Frenier was obliterated. At least twenty-nine residents drowned. The homes, the school, and the railway station were flattened or washed away. The town never recovered or rebuilt.

Walkers who find the site today discover only wood pilings rotting in the swamp water and a small rise holding Frenier Cemetery , a scatter of stones in the cypress. The people are gone. The cabbages are gone. What remains is the cemetery, and the story.