I grew up in Houma, LA, a place where sugar cane has long been a big part of the landscape. Cane fields were in abundance and everyone knew that in the fall the "grinding season" would start. Cane cutters would ply the fields and the cut cane would be hauled to central loading spots by tractors and wagons to load the cane into trucks to haul it back to the grinding mill. In much earlier days, however the cane was hauled to the mill by narrow guage railroads known as trams or dummys. I never go to see this as the practice had been abandoned before I was born.

I hope to detail the locations and names of the various mills that used to be in abundance here in south Louiana. I would also like to document the rosters of narrow guage equipment used on the dummy lines. This page will be under development for some time as I collect information to present here. If you have any information or pictures that you would like to contribute, please drop me an e-mail.

Sugar Mills and Refineries of South Louisiana

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