San Bernardo Scenic Byway

“I can’t believe it’s this close,” my girlfriend, Beth, muttered as we turned off Louisiana Highway 46 to Chalmette National Historic Park. After being spit out of the Bywater via St. Claude Avenue, through the precarious drawbridge that spans the Industrial Canal, it seemed unlikely to her that a preserved 141-acre battlefield could exist so close to the French Quarter. This, however, was just the first of several surprises we would have during our three-hour tour of the San Bernardo Scenic Byway.

Chalmette, of course, is where on January 8, 1815, the last major land battle in the War of 1812 was fought, and where—under the command of General Andrew Jackson—a rag-tag American army defeated the British during a bloody two-hour battle near Chalmette Plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River.

What remains is an eerily quiet historic park marked with two high-flying British and American flags. A winding road that circles the park allowed us to drive around and read a series of plaques that detail each stage of the battle. Next to the battlefield is the Chalmette National Historic Cemetery, in which thousands of Louisiana soldiers who served in several wars are interred.

For a while we sat in the car and pondered what, exactly, went on here nearly two hundred years ago—how many people died, how, aside from the fire-breathing factory looming in the background, it hadn’t changed all that much, and how, just a couple of weeks before this battle was fought, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, effectively ending the war.

After thinking so much about death, destruction and irony, we were good and hungry, so we stopped at Rocky & Carlo’s Restaurant for some Chalmette-style comfort food. 

Located about a half-mile up the road from the battlefield, Rocky & Carlo’s is an intensely local place, a big cafeteria-style room with an L-shaped counter that serves up massive poboys, homemade mac and cheese and tall, cold bottles of root beer. It’s the kind of joint where you assume everyone knows each other and, if you’re as paranoid as I am, that everyone is making fun of you. 

The last time I came here was with Beth’s father, who blew my “insider” cover by unfolding an enormous road map of the state of Louisiana and then asking in his bellowing, shock-jock voice if these people were Cajuns.

[Read this: Food and culture on the rise in da Parish.]

Having made minimal progress on our two poboys, mine roast beef, hers oyster, Beth and I quickly realized we’d ordered way too much food and packed the leftovers away in a to-go box.

If I learned anything on this trip, it is that a fried oyster poboy baking in the heat of a Volkswagen is a far better air freshener than any pine-scented tree that hangs from your rear-view mirror.

Anyway, just past the restaurant, we came across a displaced scattering of masonry ruins located within a small median on Highway 46. These, we learned from two commemorative plaques, are the last remnants of De la Ronde Plantation, a former French colonial plantation that was used by the British as a hospital during the Battle of New Orleans.

While there isn’t much left here but a dozen or so uneven pilings of pinkish bricks softened by decades of acid rain, the juxtaposition of plantation ruins and the former aluminum plant across the street reminded us of where Louisiana’s been and where it’s going. Nearby, a canopy of oaks that once shaded the plantation’s central driveway was littered with industrial equipment. Remember the crying Indian? That’s about how we felt.

Let me be honest, driving away from De la Ronde, Beth and I began wondering what, exactly, was so scenic about this scenic byway. With the old aluminum plant still visible in the rear-view mirror, we seemed to be trapped in a post-apocalyptic commercial wasteland of dilapidated strip malls and crumbling parking lots.

Yet this monotony was suddenly, if temporarily, broken when we were transported to what could only be described as an enchanted forest of thick trees and sun-drenched pastures. While this mirage lasted less than two minutes, it made us both realize that San Bernardo is much like another inconsistent Louisiana byway—the petrochemical/plantation time machine known as River Road.

Yet this monotony was suddenly, if temporarily, broken when we were transported to what could only be described as an enchanted forest of thick trees and sun-drenched pastures.

St. Bernard Parish was settled in the 1780s by Isleños (Island people), who left the Canary Islands, relocated to St. Bernard Parish and joined the French pioneers who settled there in 1780. Many of their descendants still live throughout the parish, some in small fishing communities, where residents depend on seafood provided by the Gulf of Mexico to make their livings.

Located just off the highway, the Isleños Museum was founded in 1981 to recognize this often overlooked culture. Its diminutive rooms feature an array of informative displays and cultural artifacts that detail the Isleños’ history in Louisiana, as well as antiquated hunting, fishing and trapping equipment. Los Isleños also houses a small research library with nearly one thousand volumes of history and literature relating to the Canary Islands, Spain and Louisiana.

We were just about to leave the museum and continue onward when a man with the hard to forget name of John Booth asked if we’d like to go inside an ancient barroom located on the museum grounds.

The Coconut Island Barroom is a 1920s era cypress and batten structure that was once a center of community activity and commerce among the fishermen and trappers of St. Bernard Parish. According to Booth, it is one of approximately six board and batten commercial structures remaining in the parish. 

Coconut Island, we soon learned, is just part of an elaborate complex of structures that make up the Los Isleños Multicultural Heritage Center. Established in 1996, the complex contains several endangered historic structures that were relocated to this lush area just behind the museum. 

Other structures include a multi-purpose building for special events, and the historic Estopinal house, which was moved to the complex in 1999. The house is constructed of hand-hewn cypress posts and bousillage, a mud and moss mixture used by Native Americans.

After spending about an hour at the museum, we ventured onward toward the historic fishing villages of Yscloskey and Delacroix Island. These two picturesque towns were established by the Isleños as agricultural communities that once provided onions, garlic and potatoes to New Orleans markets.

Incidentally, Delacroix was made somewhat famous by none other than Bob Dylan in his song “Tangled up in Blue.” Perhaps you’ll remember these lines: “So I drifted down to New Orleans, where I happened to be employed. Yeah, I was working for a while on a fishing boat right outside of Delacroix.”

Running along the Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, an abandoned channel of the Mississippi River, Highway 46 turns increasingly scenic as you enter a rustic world of aging fishing boats and dockside saloons.

Beth and I quit talking for a while. Although the 90-plus degree weather was oppressive, we turned off the air conditioning and rolled down the windows. Veering off the highway, we reached a point where the road dead-ends into an expansive bay, so we turned off the radio, busted out the leftover poboys, and listened to the sounds of outboard engines roaring into the distance.