The mayor of Urania steered his pickup down a dirt road snaking through the weedy lots and patches of trees that had once been the bustling heart of his central Louisiana town.
Jay Ivy passed pines growing where the saws of the sprawling Urania mill turned similar specimens into lumber. He pointed out the log pond, now the domain of alligators, and stopped at the mill’s smokestack, still standing over an increasingly deserted townscape. Once a year, the smokestack belches celebratory black clouds over Urania.
“For our fall festival, we get it smoking again with some old tires or whatever we can find to burn,” the big-shouldered mayor said with a sheepish grin. “I suppose it reminds us of what we had here.”
Urania was devastated when the mill and a related fiberboard operation... Read more
