Manchac: Where Three Towns Disappeared

In the cypress swamps south of Lake Pontchartrain, three small fishing settlements once occupied a sliver of land between the bayou and the lake. Frenier, Ruddock, and Napton were company towns that grew up around the Spanish moss trade and lumber camps in the early nineteen hundreds. On September twenty-ninth, nineteen fifteen, a powerful Gulf hurricane made landfall with winds topping one hundred miles per hour.

The storm surge swept through all three towns in a matter of minutes. Roughly two hundred seventy-five people died. The bodies of many were never recovered.

Locals said the voodoo priestess Julia Brown, who had lived in Frenier, died that very same morning. Today nothing remains but cypress stumps and the Canadian National rail line cutting through the swamp. The ghost town of Frenier is occasionally visible from the causeway approach, a ruin swallowed by marsh grass.