For more than 130 years, four sharecropper cabins have stood in a line along Great River Road in the upper west bank of Ascension Parish. Last week, ahead of planned industrial development in the rural area, crews demolished two in a move that sparked grief and outrage from some residents.

The cabins sit beside the Mulberry Grove Plantation house , which was constructed in 1836 in the Greek Revival style, and all are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A 1993 form about the site estimated that the cabins were built around 1890.

Ashley Gaignard, founder of the Donaldsonville-based Rural Roots Louisiana advocacy group, and other locals expressed grief over the destruction of the cabins. Her uncle, Cloveste Joseph, was born in one of them, and she said they served as a

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