What ghost towns taught me about how communities stay alive
Environmental justice reporter Danny McArthur reflects on a recent project for the Gulf States Newsroom
Join us on December 14 at 1 p.m. Central for a virtual listening session. RSVP here!
Rural places fascinate me. I have found that if a story can get me out into the country, I’m going to go. Bonus points if it’s a farm.
I’m a product and lover of the rural South — growing up in the small town of McRae, Georgia. Covering the stories and issues in small towns like these is especially important to me because it’s a way of representing a large subsection of the population that tends to either get under-covered or misrepresented. I also like to visit small towns to learn why the people who live there love them so much.
I spent a good chunk of this year exploring towns across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana that had been devastated, and in some cases wiped off the map entirely, by major environmental shifts. This turned into a three-part series called Place, Erased, which I co-reported with Gulf States Newsroom health equity reporter Drew Hawkins.
It started the way a lot of stories do; you get one flyaway piece of information in the middle of a completely different story, and that plants a seed for another full-blown story somehow.
Back in January, I went on this tour of communities impacted by petrochemical companies in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. I was riding in a bus with other journalists and community organizers who explained the threats they were facing as they fought to protect their homes. We also drove through places that had lost the fight and weren’t able to stop their communities from fading. Like the Diamond community in Norco, Louisiana. It’s a mostly Black area that was bought out by Shell and is now abandoned.
I started thinking about what other places might no longer exist — at least, not in the way they once did — because of industry or natural disasters. I wanted to explore how the small communities are often the most at risk and don’t have the resources to fight back, or the means to bounce back quickly.
I found a collection of places in Louisiana that have been displaced by industry. I ultimately chose to dig into Revilletown because the fight there was still ongoing. The close-knit community of about 100 people relocated after a chemical company moved in next door, but a years-long legal battle over who owns the town’s cemetery ensued. I passed this town over to Drew because he was born and raised in Louisiana and he has a really keen eye for looking at the systemic injustices involved in an issue — in this case, Black land loss and fighting for the right to preserve your history in the face of industrial pressure. The cemetery itself was behind a fence, so you had to be buzzed in by the company, and when you were in the cemetery, there was a constant industrial roar from nearby facilities.
For Alabama, I chose the story of Easonville, which was a small, thriving farming town until an Alabama Power project drowned it to create the Logan Martin Dam. The project was touted as a potential green energy source, but there was a downside to that progress. Listening to Mike Wadsworth describe a town that was literally underwater was haunting. And his memories are still so vivid. It was such a stark contrast to the cheerful way that Logan Martin Lake is marketed today. It’s a recreational spot and a huge draw for tourism in the area.
And then I found a town going through a similar fight right now, 60 years later. This town, Chandler Mountain, had a different outcome in part because the community was able to have more of a say. It made me think about what changes there have been since the 1960s that allow a community to fight back against something like this.
For Mississippi, I took a chance in choosing to cover Clermont Harbor. Of all of the towns, it was the one that I found the least amount of advanced information for. I honestly tried a little of everything: the historical society, local churches, etc. What I did find seemed to indicate that this tiny coastal community was truly a ghost town, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and many storms before.
But when Drew and I went there, we found a community that still believes in Clermont Harbor and that it will never fade. The best part was going to Harold and Lillian’s, a bar that has been in the area for decades. The first time, we tried to go on a Sunday afternoon, but it was a little too rowdy to get any reporting done. So we came back near the tail end of our trip — and I’m glad we did because I feel like we really got down to the essence of what Clermont Harbor is for folks. It’s such a cliche to say a place is resilient, but here I think there was just a shared understanding that no matter what natural disaster came, this town was going to rebuild itself, even if outsiders didn’t think it would.
I think each town taught me a different lesson when it comes to environmental justice. Revilletown showed me the importance of preserving legacies, even if the town itself no longer exists, and the connection people hold with their hometowns, even if the place disappears.
For Easonville and Chandler Mountain, I learned about the communities at risk when it comes to the energy transition, and how we go about protecting them or giving them a fair say. So many times in my research, I saw the same sentiment: “Yeah, it was sad this town had to go, but that’s the cost of progress.”
Clermont Harbor proved that just because a place seems to be a ghost town on paper doesn’t mean there aren’t people who still love that town and are dedicated to preserving its memory.
They all taught me that what defines a place is its people, and as long as they are still around, it’s hard for any place to truly be forgotten.
We’re excited to continue the conversation with a listening session on December 14. You’ll get the chance to hear our stories and ask questions of some of the people featured in them. Drew will be joining from Harold & Lillian’s! RSVP here.
