Day 4: Exploring the Legend of Choochie Brake on a Triumph Bonneville T120
Not too far from Alexandria, LA, way back in the Bayou is a place called Choochie Brake. Here's the story:
From: February 27, 1969 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American
Legend of Coochie Brake-Is it Truth or Myth?
By Wanda Cornelius
It was once called "no man's land" and still is to a certain extent, yet few
uninhabited places of this world can claim the mystery, the legend of Winn
Parish's Coochie Brake. Yet most Winn citizens have never seen this marvelous
phenomenon of nature, which within its 700 acres offers an ostentatious
display of winding creeks, trees, undergrowth, birds and boulders, caves and
tunnels.
But man has made his impact on Coochie Brake. It is evident today by the
tracks made by giant machines which removed once submerged boulders from the
soil. Today there is a hole where there was a high place, as legend would
have it, the lookout station for those who occupied Spain's "Coochie Fort"
(Ft. Coutier) from 1767 until 1803.
Years ago the virgin cypress gum, tupelo gum, and long leaf pine were all cut
down. It was here the world's largest tupelo gum was discovered and the
picture of it taken in 1913, appeared in the Winn Parish Enterprise on
December 1, 1966. The tree was at least ten feet in diameter breast high and
was approximately 200 feet tall. The tallest tree of this species on record
was half that size. This is one of the mysteries of Coochie Brake. The huge
cypress trees grew to great heights in the shallow "lake." In a geological
survey in Louisiana in 1899, it was estimated that the Brake contained
87,920,000 feet of cypress alone. All in all an 1899 estimate of timber in
Coochie Brake totaled 131,000,000 million board feet, averaging more than
180,000 board feet per acre. Winn historian H. B. Bozeman brought out these
facts, along with many more concerning the colorful history of Coochie Brake
in a series of articles. Much of the information in this story is a revival
of his interesting study of Coochie Brake.
This writer's contribution to the story already told so well by "Mr. History",
is therefore a comparison to the "way it was" and the "way it is" today, by
way of modern photography.
The camera's eye does reveal how the legend could be a truth in fact. Great
quantities of gold and silver bullion from Mexico were stored in the many
tunnels that were hewed out from the face of the Coochie Brake rock escarpment
for a hundred or more feet back. Bozeman said in a story published October
27, 1966. And then when ocean going sailing ships could come up the
Mississippi River, Post deConcordia (Vidalia) by mule pack train, the gold and
silver bullion from "Fort Coochie" was taken there and loaded on ships bound
for Spain.
Suddenly in 1803, Napoleon snatched Louisiana back from Spain and immediately
sold it to the United States...and before the Spaniards were able to move out
all the gold and silver bouillon from the tunnels of "Fort Coochie" their
soldiers were ordered to leave.
Legends and stories for several generations, from Louisiana to Mexico,
persisted that when the Spanish soldiers left "Fort Coochie" in 1803, they
left millions of dollars of silver and gold bullion in the rock tunnels.
Those entrances the Spaniards either sealed up, or rolled rock boulders in and
around them, until the treasure laden tunnels were hidden.
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ABOUT THE CRAZY TOUR:
2023 was a hard year.
Life got super messy, and I struggled... a lot.
So I decided to spend some time figuring out what is making me crazy. This is my attempt to sort out what is going on in my head by taking a comprehensive probe into mental health. And a chance to raise some funds for the Movember Foundation (and a few other) charities along the way. So I'm riding to
Support Mental Health
You can follow my journey as I make my way around the Lower 48 states, visiting every crazy town along the way. I'll try to make it fun by interviewing some real crazy characters and talk about some crazy stuff. We'll have some hard conversations, and try to make each other laugh. We'll cry.
26 сен 2024
