Newellton, Louisiana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Town of Newellton
Town
Country	United States
State	Louisiana
Parish	Tensas
Area	0.9 sq mi (2.3 km²)
- land	0.8 sq mi (2.1 km²)
- water	0.1 sq mi (0.3 km²), 11.11%
Center
- coordinates	32°04′22″N 91°14′21″W / 32.07278, -91.23917Coordinates: 32°04′22″N 91°14′21″W / 32.07278, -91.23917
- elevation	79 ft (24.1 m)
Population	1,482 (2000)
Density	1,960.2 /sq mi (756.8 /km²)
Time zone	CST (UTC-6)
- summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
Area code	318
Location of Newellton in Louisiana
Location of Louisiana in the United States

Newellton is a town located in northern Tensas Parish, Louisiana (tehn-SAW). The population was 1,482 at the 2000 census. It is just west of the Mississippi River.

Newellton was founded by John David Stokes Newell, Sr. (1837-1899), a planter and lawyer in St. Joseph, the seat of Tensas Parish. Newell named the town for his father, Edward D. Newell (1810-1888), a native of North Carolina who relocated to Tensas Parish in 1834.

John Newell was a Confederate veteran who joined the Tensas Cavalry and fought in Shiloh, Tennessee, and Corinth, Mississippi, in 1862. In 1864, he married Nannie Newell, a first cousin, and they had four sons. After the Civil War, he returned to cotton planting on the Cypress Plantation and resumed his legal practice. He was interested in public education and was named president of the Tensas Parish School Board in 1866 and again in 1892. He died in St. Joseph and is interred in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1 Politics
2 The former Newellton High School
3 Geography
4 Demographics
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Politics

Prior to 1968, each parish regardless of population had at least one member in the Louisiana House of Representatives. The last member to represent only Tensas Parish was Democrat S. S. DeWitt (1914-1998) of Newellton and later St. Joseph. DeWitt represented Tensas Parish from 1964-1968, and then from 1968-1972, he and Lantz Womack of Winnsboro, the seat of Franklin Parish, together represented Franklin, Tensas, and Madison parishes. Womack defeated DeWitt in single-member District 20 in the 1971 party primary. DeWitt later switched to Republican affiliation.

In 1995, a Newellton pharmacist, Democrat Phil Preis, was among sixteen gubernatorial candidates who sought to succeed Edwin Washington Edwards. He polled 133,271 (9 percent) of the votes statewide. In Tensas Parish, he received a plurality of the ballots, 1,233 votes (36.9 percent). The eventual winner of the election, Republican Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., polled only 232 votes (6.9 percent) in Tensas Parish in the primary.^[1] When Preis ran again for governor in 1999, he polled only 144 votes (4.2 percent) in his own Tensas Parish.^[2]

[edit] The former Newellton High School

Newellton High School, which served grades pre-kindergarten-12, had only seventy-four students at the close of the 2005-2006 academic year. The Tensas Parish School Board first voted by a 4-3 margin on May 18, 2006, to keep Newellton High functioning for at least another year. Superintendent Carol Johnson had proposed that the school be closed and that all the Newellton students be bused to St. Joseph, the parish seat. Under Mrs. Johnson's proposal, high schools students would have attended Davidson High School, which serves only grades 9-12 and also had a low enrollment.

Ultimately, it was decided to consolidate Newellton and Davidson schools into "Tensas High School" in St. Joseph. Violence broke out at the consolidated school on November 2, 2006, when fourteen male students were arrested by the office of Tensas Parish Sheriff Rickey Jones. [1]

Newellton High lost a popular English teacher in the spring of 2006, when William R. "Randy" Achey (born 1952), a native of Virginia, died of heart failure. His memorial service was held in the school gymnasium. In addition, two science teachers announced their retirements. Mrs. Johnson said that she believes the closing of Newellton High School would improve educational quality so that the small parish could concentrate on a single high school.

Newellton High had a relatively new facility, and the board was reluctant to abandon a structure still in good condition even though the enrollment numbers could not sustain continuation.

The school board earlier, citing declining enrollments, closed Waterproof High School and Lisbon Elementary School, both in the economically-depressed town of Waterproof in the southern part of the parish.

There is a private school, Tensas Academy, located in St. Joseph, which has drawn from the smaller white population of Newellton as well as other areas of the predominantly black parish.

Newellton High School was desegregated under federal court orders in August 1970. William E. "Bill" Vosburg, a native of New Roads, the seat of Pointe Coupee Parish, served as principal during the early years of transition. He later entered business in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish in north Louisiana. The superintendent at the time was Charles Ed Thompson, a Tensas Parish native, who later accepted a position with the Louisiana Department of Education in Baton Rouge.

[edit] Geography

Newellton is located at 32°4′22″N, 91°14′21″W (32.072740, -91.239230)^[3].

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²), of which, 0.8 square miles (2.0 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.3 km²) of it (12.64%) is water.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^[4] of 2000, there were 1,482 people, 536 households, and 376 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,960.2 people per square mile (752.9/km²). There were 595 housing units at an average density of 787.0/sq mi (302.3/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 34.41% White, 64.71% African American, 0.07% Asian, 0.20% from other races, and 0.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.96% of the population.

There were 536 households out of which 37.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.5% were married couples living together, 30.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.7% were non-families. 26.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.19.

In the town the population was spread out with 32.0% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 23.8% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 80.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 72.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $17,457, and the median income for a family was $21,029. Males had a median income of $23,333 versus $14,519 for females. The per capita income for the town was $9,365. About 33.8% of families and 38.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.9% of those under age 18 and 31.9% of those age 65 or over.