Gear from Cinclare Mill

Cinclare, near Brusly in West Baton Rouge Parish, was the parish's last remaining sugar mill. The property had once been called Marengo Plantation until James H. Laws of Cincinnati, Ohio, purchased Marengo for $26,000 in 1878 and renamed it Cinclare after his business partner, Lafayette Cinclare Keever. After the Civil War, labor shortages and financial losses led local sugar planters to abandon smaller mills and send their cane by railway to Cinclare for grinding and refining. The Laws family built a new modern mill in 1897, and high demand for Cinclare's services brought another expansion in 1906, after which it was called the Cinclare Central Factory. Gears of varying sizes were used throughout the operation, and one such gear drove one of five mills on the mill floor, turning the rollers that squeezed juice from the cane. Cinclare's last grinding season came in 2005, and although its fields still produce cane, many factory workers and much of the mill equipment were moved to a larger mill at Alma Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish.

Port Allen, Louisiana · United States