Music and Cotton (28th August)

We leave Natchez and cross the mighty Mississippi back into Louisiana. At Ferriday, we look through the Delta Music Museum. Ferriday is the birthplace of Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Lee Swaggart (country music singer and evangelist) and Mickey Gilley (country music and nightclub owner). A small but very informative museum on all 3 of their famous sons, plus quite a few more singers from the Mississippi Delta region. Further on we stop at Frogmore to look at what went on at a Cotton Plantation. At one time both sides of the Mississippi supported a large number of cotton plantations. Cotton is still grown here but machinery has replaced the slave labour of 200 years ago and the share cropping from a mere 50 years ago. We have a very interesting tour of the buildings and see just how labour intensive is was to produce raw cotton. We head west and south for the rest of the day to finish at Lake Charles, a mere 30 miles from Texas. Along the way we do see a Cowboy Church. You have to remember that around here there are a lot of churches but this is the first one we have seen for cowboys and there is a rodeo ring out the back.