Louisiana Levee Company - New Orleans, Louisiana 1872

Beautifully engraved RARE certificate from the Louisiana Levee Company issued in 1872. This historic document was has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a rivereboat boat going down the river. This item is hand signed by the Company's Secretary and is over 137 years old. Civil War Era tax stamp attached to face.


Certificate Vignette



During the Civil War, levees were cut and destroyed in many places to aid in military activities. For many years following the war, the people had little money with which to rebuild them. As a result of this neglect, the delta was overflowed year after year. The assessed value of taxable property dropped from nearly 14 million dollars in 1860 to an all-time low of less than half a million dollars in 1868.

Following the Civil War the local system of levee administration was abandoned. It was replaced in 1866 by a uniform system of statewide control which lodged all responsibility for a levee system in Louisiana in a single State Board of Levee Commissioners.

The worst flood in Madison's history, up to that time, occurred in 1867, stripping away long lines of levees which had cost thousands of dollars to build. A State Board of Public Works took over the job of rebuilding the levees the following year. Their work was undone, however, by another flood in 1871.

State administration ended with the 1871 flood, but statewide authority continued in a private corporation, the Louisiana Levee Company. The company was established by a special legislative act to assume full charge of the levee system and to carry on its work under contracts with the state for 21 years.

Although a three-mill tax had been put on all property there was not enough money to provide complete protection. Extensive breaks were left open and the surrounding country was subjected to annual over-flow. The result was general abandonment of plantations, loss of property, and a general decrease in taxable wealth.

Many breaks occurred in these early levees due to lack of proper preparation of the foundation. Exploration ditches to disclose the presence of buried logs were not used at that time. Stumps and fallen logs were often left in levees by contractors who wished to cheapen the cost of construction. When they decayed, weak places developed which were sometimes responsible for serious breaks.

These defects were due mainly to lack of proper supervision. Levees were allowed to grow up in weeds and trees which prevented them being sodded with bermuda. In many places levees were used as public roads, there being no roads behind them. Tenant houses and gardens were sometimes situated on top of them. Years later, laws were passed to prevent the levees from being used for such purposes.

Dissatisfaction with the Louisiana Levee Company developed during the later Reconstruction Era. It was finally abolished well before the expiration of its original authorized corporate life. Louisiana eventually turned to a system of local levee districts, each governed by a board of commissioners vested with authority and responsibility for the levee system within the territorial limits of its district.

Congress appointed a civil and military commission in 1874 to make a full report the best system of permanent flood control and stronger levees, but no appropriation was made for levee-building.

The Mississippi River Commission was created in 1878. In its first report, it proposed to prevent the caving and erosion of the banks and to protect the levees by revetment. Congress appropriated the money for the revetment in 1881, but was unwilling to allow any to be spent on the levees except as a means of improving the river for navigation.

However, some money was allotted for building levees in the following year. During the 1880's modest improvements were made in the levee protecting Madison Parish. It was an earth embankment with an eight-foot crown, but with practically no freeboard above the flood of 1882. As the levee lines gradually became complete and floodwaters were confined to the river channel, it became necessary to make the levee higher and increase the width of its base.

Moreover, the lack of good levees in southeast Arkansas made Madison's Mississippi River levees almost futile. It was proposed that an immense levee be built across the Louisiana -Arkansas border from the Mississippi to the hills to keep Arkansas' water out of Louisiana. Or, the Federal Government could build the whole line of levees from Missouri to the Gulf.

For years Congress was not disposed to act on either proposal. However, the Mississippi River Commission eventually built a solid line of levees from the mouth of Red River to Helena, Arkansas. Louisiana money still goes toward the maintenance of Arkansas levees.