Thirty years ago in September 1983, copies of Country Roads’ inaugural issue appeared before the beansprout-munching patrons of St. Francisville’s Magnolia Café and a handful of other delivery destinations in the Feliciana parishes and the Mississippi counties that border them. Within its twenty pages were a calendar featuring nine events, articles on growing herbs and cooking cornbread, a recipe for cheese fondue, and a photograph of a sign spotted near Woodville that read “Please Slow Down. You are entering the 19th century.” There was a remarkably well-written article on native flowers that one might encounter during drives along the country roads of “English Louisiana” if, as the author recommended, one were “willing to creep on feet or knees along the tall banks of creeks, to find the wild pink and white Indian Pipes.” And there was a jauntily inaccurate hand-drawn map representing the region between Natchez and Baton Rouge that looks as if it were drawn by a drunken toddler. On it the Mississippi River is represented by two meandering parallel lines, Clinton is identified by chapbook art of dancing peasants, and St. Francisville is the center of the universe. If the map is to be believed civilization ends at Hammond and to venture any further east would be to fall off the edge of the world.
Underwriting these features was a small but eclectic group of advertisements that ran the gamut: from gift shops in Natchez and St. Francisville to towing services and gentlemen’s clothiers in Baton Rouge (remember Gilhe’s?), to a New Orleans cooking school, a herb company; and apparently, every bank for miles around. All of the above had sprung more or less fully formed from the fecund imagination of my mother-in-law, Dorcas Brown, who, in the leadup to the 1984 New Orleans World’s Fair, couldn’t bear the thought that all those out-of-state visitors might come to Louisiana and leave without knowing about the Feliciana Turkey Trot or Asphodel Plantation Octoberfest. So, with her signature blend of let’s-get-moving optimism and disdain for things like business plans or cost benefit analyses, she set out to start a magazine. The first issue appeared in September 1983—several months before the World’s Fair’s scheduled opening—the thinking being that this would leave time to get distribution organized before hordes of World’s Fair tourists started swarming up the River Road in search of bed and breakfasts, Indian Pipes, and places to open a checking account.
So, with her signature blend of let’s-get-moving optimism and disdain for things like business plans or cost benefit analyses, she set out to start a magazine.
Maybe it was the map. But when the World’s Fair got underway no visiting tourists found their way to the Felicianas, let alone stuck around for an antiques fair. But by that time folks in St. Francisville and Jackson, Clinton and Natchez, and Baton Rouge had gotten used to seeing the quaint little magazine with a trotting horse on the cover. They liked the sedate pace and the acknowledgement of the area’s rural heritage. They appreciated the attention to small town events and the idiosyncrasies of country living. And they liked knowing what sorts of cultural things were afoot in neighboring towns along the Great River Road. Without really meaning to Dorcas had stumbled upon regionalism. Why? Perhaps because the family farm where she lived, situated halfway between St. Francisville, Louisiana, and Woodville, Mississippi, meant that she’d grown up with one foot in each community and each state. So consequently she felt equally at home in, and proud of, both.
Whatever the reason the kernels of what Country Roads was to become had been sown. It turned out that when viewed from a regional perspective cultural tourism and small-town pride went together well. Especially when packaged with quirky writing and a hint of high spirited Southern bohemianism. So thirty years later Country Roads is still here. It covers a wider region, includes a calendar that often runs to upwards of 150 events, and features more than a dozen columns covering art, music, cuisine, architecture, history, outdoor adventures, getaways, folklore, and more from Natchez to New Orleans, Lafayette to the Northshore. And, when the mood or the subject matter strike us, beyond. It’s not published off of Dorcas’s dining room table anymore, but she’s still a big part of the publication. So is Anna Macedo—the artist and onetime ad agency owner who created the look of that very first issue and still designs each cover. So is Anne Butler, who served as editor in the early days and continues to write articles. So are contributors like Lucile Hume and Brenda Maitland and Alex Cook and Ruth Laney and Leon Standifer, whose columns have filled these pages with spark and vigor, presenting unique insights into the culture that surrounds us for literally hundreds of issues. Country Roads is the product of so much enthusiasm, so much curiosity, so much determination never to take this singular place for granted—on the part of a great many people. Thirty years after the World’s Fair that it was made for and it’s still around. Believe me when I tell you no-one’s more surprised than we are.
I should mention one other thing that you may or may not encounter as you read on. To mark this milestone we’ve stashed thirty Golden Tickets in copies of our September issue. Each ticket entitles its finder to a not-insignificant prize, and admission to Country Roads’ thirtieth anniversary bash at Juban’s in October. So if you happen upon something large and shiny, bravo! Great things await.
Thank you very much for reading Country Roads.