In a November 2009 post, we gave background on the first President of the Live Oak Society—the Locke Breaux Oak.

Locke Breaux Oak, circa 1956, Southern Dairy property in Taft, LA

Since that post, I’ve received a series of emails from a reader named Brad whose mother lived next to the Locke Breaux Oak for more than a decade. Brad sent me several photographs from his mother’s archives and shared some personal stories and remembrances about his mother’s time living next to the old oak. I am adding those to the 100 Oaks Blog in memory of the Locke Breaux Oak and the people whose lives were touched by this magnificent tree.

Brad’s mother, Ruth Fahrig, was born on a dairy in Pevely, Missouri. At about the age of four, her family moved from Missouri to Louisiana where her father took over management of Southern Dairy in Taft. The family (Ruth, her parents, and two siblings) lived in a huge house owned by the dairy, and the Locke Breaux Oak stood within 100 feet of their home. Ruth and her family knew the old oak simply as “The President” and it was a familiar neighbor and daily part of Ruth’s life for more than a decade.

One of Ruth’s fond memories of “The President” was climbing to what she called the “crow’s nest”—a point in the crown of the tree where you could climb no higher. From that point, some 70 feet in the air, she could see for many miles around and look down on the ship traffic in the Mississippi River. Though there was less ship traffic in those days, it was still a treat when she could sit in her lofty nest and watch a ship slowly make it’s way past her home.  She said that she only made it up to the crow’s nest a few times because it was quite scary going up, and even scarier on the way down, when you are less able to see where to put your feet.

Ruth and her family lived in the Southern Dairy home for more than a decade before her father took over management of the Rex Dairy in Luling, about six to eight miles downriver from Taft.

The photograph (above) is dated 1940 and features Brad’s mother in front of the Locke Breaux Oak.

Another excerpt on the history of the Locke Breaux Oaks is taken from the book Louisiana’s German Coast: A History of St. Charles Parish, 2nd edition by Henry E. Yoes III. “St. Charles Parish held a national attraction within its boundaries, the Locke Breaux Oak named after one of its owners, Samuel Locke Breaux. Breaux was a prominent New Orleanian, a one-time president of the New Orleans Board of Trade. Before the tree was given his name, it was known as the Providence Live Oak, after the plantation that it had watched over in another era.” The Providence Plantation was later bought by the Southern Dairy Products, Inc., around 1935. One man, Leon Weiss, dominated the company. Weiss was the architect and builder of the present state capitol.

This 1965 photo (below) shows the dramatic decline of the tree in its very last years.

The next two images show the Southern Dairy house in the background. It also shows the picnic area around the oak.

The last image titled “Under the Big Tree” and dated 1940, is an example of just how huge the tree was in terms of trunk girth. What you see in the photograph is only a little more than half the width of the trunk. You can also see a significant bare bark wound, perhaps from a lightning strike.

At some point, the Southern Dairy changed names to the Colonial Dairy. It’s unclear from St. Charles Parish records if Southern Dairy was purchased by the larger Colonial Dairy, but that’s a possibility since at one point Colonial was reportedly the largest dairy in Louisiana.

Then, around 1966, the property was sold to the Hooker Chemical company (the same company made infamous by the Love Canal chemical waste tragedy in Niagara, New York, publicized in the late 1970s.  After that point, the old tree began a slow decline in health, possibly as a result of groundwater and air pollution from the Hooker Chemical Company operations or else more natural causes.  In either case, it’s a sad day when Louisiana loses a grand old oak such as the Locke Breaux.