The Long Decade

By T. O. Stallings

The Long Decade is many stories in one. It is the story of a great and devastating flood. It is the story of millions being lost in the crash of a stock market. It is the story of America during the time of gangsters and G-men. But primarily, it is the story of two men that destiny brought together and who formed an unlikely friendshipa junior reporter and a flamboyant politician.

Young, ambitious, working for a newspaper in Alabama, eager to prove himself, Ryan Covington is sent home to Louisiana to cover the gubernatorial campaign of a candidate most insiders thought could never win. The political machine in New Orleans could not have been more wrong.

Huey P. Long Jr. was unlike any candidate Louisiana had ever seen. With his hillbilly wisdom and speech, Long proved to be the greatest mass communicator ever witnessed. Blessed with tireless energy and a near-photographic memory, Huey Long stirred the crowds to beat the odds and win. With his victory, he built the ultimate political machine. And Ryan Covington was there to witness it all. This is his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984517722

T. O. Stallings

T. O. Stallings is retired from the United States Army where he attained the rank of First Sergeant. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and throughout his career served at various posts around the globe. A resident of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mr. Stallings divides his time between volunteer work, writing, and travelling.

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PROLOGUE

I n the third week of August 1926, a low-pressure system settled over much of the Central United States—Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma. Across the whole area, it rained. It rained continuously. It rained—not the rain of welcome relief to summer heat that young boys gleefully strip off their shirts and frolic in, but a rain of torrents. Sheets of water poured from the sky with such might that parched and thirsty fields of crops had no chance to drink. Unable to absorb the rain, the sunbaked ground sent the uncountable millions of gallons of water into the closest streams and rivers. The storm lasted for days before moving east into Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Other than those who endured the days of long downpours, no one in the country paid attention to the storm.

Forty-eight hours after the rains stopped, they began again. Another low-pressure system. Another dumping of rain on an already-saturated earth. The second storm came and went. It was quickly followed by a third. By September 1, water poured over the banks of streams and flooded towns from Carroll, Iowa, to Peoria, Illinois. People across the nation started to notice. A few people. Regrettably, the people who should have noticed did not.

The streams and creeks that overflowed their banks and flooded the towns are part of the Mississippi River watershed. The fourth largest watershed in the world, the Mississippi River watershed extends from the Allegheny Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. Nearly 1.2 million square miles. Two hundred and fifty tributaries flow into the mighty Mississippi. The watershed includes all or part of thirty-one states and two Canadian provinces.

At the Mississippi’s headwaters, at Lake Itasca, the average flow rate of the river is six cubic feet of water per second. That translates to 44.934 gallons moving downstream every second. As the water descends southward, it gains not only speed but also volume. By the time it reaches New Orleans, the average flow rate is 600,000 cubic feet per second: 4,493,400 gallons of water every second. Yet only the people along the rivers paid attention to the onslaught of rain in late 1926. They, more than anyone, knew whenever it rained, the water would eventually find its way into the Mississippi River.

On September 4, there were floods in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. Four people drowned in the raging water. Those deaths were followed by another storm. More rain falling in what seemed like relentless sheets. Seven more people drowned. Their deaths were mocked by yet another storm.

In the middle of September, the Neosho River thundered through Kansas, carrying away five more victims. In Illinois, floodwaters rammed a tree through an oil pipeline. The collision set the pipeline ablaze. In northwestern Iowa, fifteen inches of rain fell in three days. Floods occurred in the Floyd River valley. The Sioux River valley flooded, as did the Dry Creek valley. Ten more souls were lost to cold and murky waters. Across the country, as the rains and floods continued through the month of September, as those affected wondered if the rains would ever cease, some newspaper editors began to take notice. The Mississippi River grew alarmingly fat and overflowed its banks above Cairo, Illinois.

At the time, I was working as a junior reporter for the Mobile Press. With no prior warning, I was sent to cover the flooding. I was sent to Memphis. A location of reasonable safety. At least that was what my editor thought. I didn’t mind the assignment. I was tiring of Mobile. Tiring of my gruff editor’s cynical comments about my work. Eagerly, I packed and headed north, anxious to prove my ability. The rains continued to fall.

There were floods in Nebraska. There were floods in South Dakota. There were floods in Oklahoma. There were floods in places I had never heard of. Despite getting soaked on a daily basis, living off cheap diner food, and sleeping in even cheaper hotel rooms, I immersed myself in the story. I talked with flood victims and listened to their stories of despair. Each night, I banged away on a typewriter, not only trying to document factual news, but also trying to capture the emotions of heartbreak and the fear of those who had witnessed all their earthly possessions swept away by crushing waves of angry water.

Late in October, the rains ceased. Everyone relaxed. The Midwest and the nation collectively breathed a sigh of relief. The rains, everyone believed, were over. And although it would take time for the waters to recede, life would get back to normal. Just as it had after the countless floods in years gone by. People started turning their thoughts toward Thanksgiving. Toward Christmas. I began to pack my bags to return to Mobile. For reasons known only to my editor, he told me to stay in Memphis. To stay and write fluff pieces about how people were cleaning up and preparing for the future. I thought I was being exiled.

Six weeks later, the storms returned. The Mississippi River valley was pelted again. My editor’s instincts proved right. I begrudgingly gave him a little more respect.

In mid-December, temperatures in South Dakota plummeted sixty-six degrees in eighteen hours. Blinding snowstorms followed. In Montana, nearly thirty inches of snow fell. Minnesota witnessed ten-foot snowdrifts. Farther south, in Little Rock, Arkansas, six inches of rain fell in one day. In Memphis, the sky dumped ten inches of rain. In Johnson City, Tennessee, there was six inches. Christmas 1926 brought widespread flooding.

Three children drowned in Arkansas. Nashville streets were flooded. There were floods in Chattanooga. Across the state of Tennessee, sixteen people lost their lives. President Calvin Coolidge, who was asked to tour the devastation and reassure the citizens, stayed in Washington and did nothing. New Year’s Day came and went. I spent New Year’s Eve in Memphis. I spent it alone in my shabby hotel room, trying to stay dry.

Twenty-three days into January 1927, Pittsburg began to flood. Five days later, Cincinnati flooded. During the next week, the White River and the Little Red River broke through levees in Arkansas. On February 11, New Orleans received nearly six inches of rain. The city’s pumps failed. The streets remained flooded for hours. Violent local flooding across large parts of the country claimed thirty-two lives. Fear, followed by panic, began to settle over hundreds of thousands of people. The Mississippi River grew bloated with water. President Coolidge stayed in the White House and did nothing.

March came in like a lion. Relentless blizzards dumped snow in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. Finished snowing in those states, the stormed moved east and dumped more snow in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Farther south, the storm brought rain.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the ides of March. The same warning could have been issued for 1927. The ides of March ushered in more violent weather systems. Three tornadoes ravaged the Mississippi River valley. Forty-five people were killed. By March 25, the flood gauge at Cairo, Illinois, was at the highest stage ever recorded. Four days later, the Laconia Circle levee, the oldest levee in Arkansas, burst apart and fell into the Mississippi River. Hundreds of thousands of acres were submerged beneath fuming white-foamed floodwaters. On the last day of March, storms in Oklahoma City took another two lives. Panic reigned. President Coolidge stayed in the White House and did nothing. The head of the Mississippi River Commission urged people to be calm. The Corps of Engineers commander urged people to be calm. The National Red Cross gathered resources in Natchez, Mississippi, and began planning for refugee camps. Up and down the Mississippi River, boats were being built for rescue operations. And from Cairo to the Gulf of Mexico, every inch of every levee was patrolled by armed men looking for weak spots and saboteurs.

There was no relief. The rains continued.

At St. Louis, the river rose six feet in twenty-four hours.

April brought unseasonably cold weather. It also brought more rain. No one thought it possible, but it rained harder than before. Harder than in August. Harder than it had rained in September. The water had nowhere to go except into the already-engorged rivers. On April 9, more than a million acres were under water. Fifty thousand people were living in tents or boxcars. From Iowa to the Gulf, the river remained in flood stage. And the rain continued to fall in sheets. On the thirteenth, massive tornadoes ripped through twelve states. More rain. More deaths. More flooding. More homeless. More panic. More feelings of hopelessness.

Only later would the world learn that in New Orleans, secret meetings were under way to dynamite the levees in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes. Blow holes in the levees below the city and the floodwaters would bypass the Big Easy. The plan, if executed, would purposely turn ten thousand people into refugees and destroy their livelihoods for years. On Good Friday, fifteen inches of rain fell on New Orleans. The pumps failed again. Four foot of water stood in the city’s streets. The Corps of Engineers called for calm. They were quick to remind everyone that no government levee had breached. That claim would no longer be valid the next day.

On April 16, in Dorena, Missouri, twelve hundred feet of a government levee crumbled. Three days later, in New Madrid, Missouri, government levees burst apart, opening a mile-wide gap. To add insult to injury, tornadoes tore across four states, killing thirty-one. On April 21, the levee at Mounds Landing, Mississippi, breached. A wall of water three quarters of a mile wide and over a hundred feet high rushed through and flooded the Mississippi Delta. Before it would cease rising, the water would cover an area fifty miles wide and a hundred miles long. From the water’s surface to the ground beneath it was a distance of twenty feet. Homes, barns, mules, horses, and people were swept away, never to be seen again.

Two days later, an oceangoing tanker lost control and rammed the levee on the west bank of the Mississippi River forty-three miles below New Orleans. The river began to flow through the break.

The day after the Mounds Landing levee dissolved into the Mississippi, my editor sent word I was to relocate from Memphis to Vicksburg. Taking up residency in the Vicksburg Hotel, I spent my days in a small boat helping pluck people from rooftops and trees. Sadly, there were few to save. Those we did were haggard, their eyes permanently etched with the trauma of their ordeal. Their ordeal intensified when we forced them to leave behind their dog or their cat. The animals, we told them, would have to fend for themselves.

More often than not, we saw nothing living. Instead, it became common to witness the carcasses of dead mules, cows, and horses float by. Entire roofs drifted south, as did boxcars, large trees, chicken coops, and barns. And all too often, the only discovery our tiny boat made were the blackened and bloated remains of those who had drowned.

While Charles Lindbergh was landing in Paris, I returned to the Vicksburg Hotel from a fruitless day of searching. On the bluffs surrounding the city, twenty thousand people were living in Red Cross tents. Thousands more filled boxcars provided by the railroads. Depression numbed my being. Daily, I asked myself, How much more desolation is yet to come? No one could know. As I entered the lobby, the desk clerk called my name. You have a telegram, he said.

Taking the envelope, I ripped it open, unfolded the paper, and stared at the words CALL EDITOR IMMEDIATELY. At that moment, I knew I was about to be fired. It had been four days since I had filed a story. Four days of sitting in a boat, crisscrossing the twenty feet of water covering what were once fields of crops. Four days of finding no survivors. Four days of being unable to put pen to paper and describe to the world the magnitude of the devastation. Four days of craving a drink. No, not a drink. That wasn’t right. Dozens of drinks would be better. Enough drinks to sweep my mind clear of the wretchedness that encircled me. But during the age of Prohibition, the prospect of finding a drink in Vicksburg loomed remote.

Crossing the lobby, I slipped into the phone booth, rang the operator, and gave the number to the Mobile Press. When I was put through to the editor, he answered in his customary gruff way. Yeah, what?

I told him who I was.

He barked again, I understand you are from Louisiana.

New Orleans, I answered, still expecting the axe to fall.

Pack your bags, he bellowed. You are going home.

Why? I asked feebly.

Huey Long is running for governor, and I want you there to cover the story.

He ran before and lost, I said.

Not this time. Mark my words.

Huey Long is a buffoon, I said.

Maybe so, he acknowledged. But not as big a buffoon as the people who dynamited the levees and flooded two parishes. No, sir. Buffoon or not, Huey Long is going to win.

I hung up the phone and sat quietly in the booth for several minutes. I was going to New Orleans. I was going home. Rushing through my mind was not the overwhelming joy of once again seeing friends or family. No. That thought didn’t enter my mind. What did enter my mind was the realization that, Prohibition or not, a drink would not be hard to find in the Big Easy.

My name is Ryan Covington, and this is the story of my coverage of Huey P. Long.

ONE

L ouisiana.

The state is unlike any other in the union. Named for King Louis XIV in 1682 by the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the nearly fifty-two-thousand-square-mile state remains, after 115 years of statehood, a land of great wealth. A land of great men. A land of great thieves. A land of corrupt politicians.

From Driskill Mountain, near the Arkansas border, Louisiana slopes gently southward toward the Gulf of Mexico. One third of the state’s land lies below the banks of the rivers running through it. Alligators, snapping turtles, garfish, and bald cypress have inhabited Louisiana’s rivers and swamps for millions of years. Opossum, armadillos, fire ants, Formosan termites, tiger mosquitoes, as well as intense heat, hurricanes, and floods all came later. All make life miserable. Yet despite these obstacles, despite the fact that Louisiana is the nation’s drain, the state has survived. Survived and, for a few, thrived.

Fortunes have been made in rice. In sugarcane. In cotton. In transportation. And in oil. Fortunes made with cheap labor. On the backs of slaves before the War between the States. On the backs of immigrants and the poor after the war. Fortunes that widened the divide between the haves and the have-nots. But that is not the only divide in Louisiana.

One could say that Louisiana is divided by sections. Three different and distinct sections.

The north. Predominately Protestant, Anglo-Saxon hardworking small farmers, who scratch out their meager living from sunbaked soil with no nutrients. Their ancestors were the latecomers. They were the men and women who felt squeezed by the cities along the East Coast. They came on foot. They came in crude wagons pulled by aging oxen or dying mules. They came as far as they could and claimed for themselves the land that no one else wanted. Land, in their minds, that just might be a little better than the land they had left behind. Uneducated, poor, unseen by travelers who had eyes only for the large mansions of plantations, they lived, bore children, and died. They are the piney woods people. The hard-shelled Baptists. They are Louisiana’s hillbillies.

The south. French ancestry and Catholicism prevail. Gentlemen and ladies who can trace their lineage to the fabled casket girls or the infamous correction girls. To the days of Bienville. It is the Louisiana of the past. Its people are more tolerant than those of the north. The soft-shelled people. Mixed races. Alluvial soil so rich it grows anything. All one has to do is stick their finger in the ground. They are fishermen, trappers, rice workers, and plantation owners. They are easier going than their fellow citizens in the north.

But both north and south suffer economic barriers. There are as many poor in the south as there are northern hillbillies. There are barriers of race and of creed in both areas. But in the north, these barriers have spawned hatred. Lynching of Negroes. Membership in antiorganizations. Anti-Catholic. Anti-Jew. Antiliquor. Antieverything. In south Louisiana, it is different. Hot-blooded debate is commonplace, but they do not tend to torment themselves or others like they do in the north. Usually, the hot-blooded discussions ends with a quiet shaking of the head and the words "Eh bien!" And more often than not, the heated argument in the south and the hatred in the north always dealt with the third section of Louisiana. The section known simply as the City. New Orleans.

New Orleans. From its inception, it did not take long for it to become a good-time town. Taverns, grog houses, and brothels sprang up. Thieves, vagabonds, and drunkards frequented the establishments on a daily basis. And it was in the City that Louisiana saw its first corrupt politician. The Marquis de Vaudreuil. A flashy, careless individual, Vaudreuil introduced pageantry to his kingdom. To his capital of mud streets and wooden hovels, he brought the first theater. The first dance master. A shipload of fine furniture. And the first exploitation. Seizing materials meant for the military, he replaced them with cheaper, inferior ones. The profits went into his pockets. He allowed monopolies in exchange for payments and percentages, the first of a never-ending pattern of kickbacks. He alone birthed Louisiana nepotism. The Great Marquis, as he was known, was the first, but not the last, to bleed the people of Louisiana. Don Alejandro O’Reilly under Spanish rule. Major General Benjamin Butler during Union occupation. The list goes on and on.

Three days after hanging up the phone in Vicksburg, I arrived in New Orleans. The city of my birth. The city of my youth and my education. The city I left in search of my own path. My own destiny. Now that path, that destiny, deposited me back at its doorstep. I made my way by streetcar to the Garden District. At Jackson Avenue, I got off the car and walked to Chestnut Street, where I turned the corner, walked two blocks, then stood at the front gate of my parent’s home. Standing on the sidewalk, I stared at the large Victorian mansion while conjuring up the memories of my childhood. After what seemed hours, I pushed open the gate and climbed the steps to the portico.

My knock on the massive door was answered by a snub-nosed young woman with flowing auburn hair that reached past her shoulders. Dressed in the uniform of a maid, the woman looked at me with a puzzled expression. Yes, she said. Her voice was soft. Sweet. Alluring.

And who are you? I asked as my eyes took in the rest of her features. Features I found more than pleasing. Delicate pale skin. Hazel eyes. Full round lips.

Is the lady of the house expecting you? she wanted to know.

No, I said with a smile. I am sure she is not. It had been months since I had written my mother. There was no reason for her to expect me to show up at her doorstep.

Then be on your way, the woman commanded. We do not allow salesmen here.

The image of me being a door-to-door salesman made me laugh. I laughed for the first time in months. I laughed a loud bellowing laugh, which brought my mother scurrying to the front door.

Ryan!

Hello, Mother, I said as I regained my composure. The maid’s face blushed with embarrassment, and she backed into the hallway. Putting my suitcase down, I leaned forward and kissed my mother’s forehead. It’s good to see you.

Did that silly little paper finally fire you? she asked. My mother had always wanted me to be a lawyer like my father. Or a doctor like her father. Or anything but what I wanted to be: a reporter. At times cruel and vindictive, she let no opportunity to degrade my chosen occupation slip by.

No, Mother, I answered. They sent me here to work.

Slipping her arm around mine, she pulled me through the door. Colette can get your suitcase, she said, nodding toward the red-faced maid. Put it in the blue room, Colette, she instructed as she ushered me into the parlor. Now tell me. Why are you really here? Did you come to your senses and quit?

I told you, I replied. I’m here on assignment. I slipped into an oversized leather chair and loosened my tie. How long has Colette been here?

Three months, my mother said, then quickly added, But don’t change the subject. What could the readers in Mobile want to know about New Orleans? You know they are backwards and aloof. I snickered at the remark.

Colette appeared with a silver tray holding a silver coffeepot and china cups. Placing the tray on a rosewood table, she gave a nod toward my mother, then riveted her eyes on the floor.

I’m Ryan, I said, standing up and extending my hand in her direction. I’m sorry about the confusion at the door. I should have told you who I was.

Don’t fraternize with the help, my mother scolded. Your father, God rest his soul, would not have approved. With a wave of her hand, she dismissed Colette. I watched carefully as she exited the room. Graceful. Elegant. Angelic. Hired help or not, I found her intoxicating.

That was rude, don’t you think? It was my turn to scold my mother.

No, I do not, my mother stated in defense of herself. You’re changing the subject again. What insignificant little story are you here to cover?

Huey Long, I said.

Huey Long is a vile little man, my mother snorted.

He’s running for governor.

He can’t possibly win, my mother insisted.

And why is that? I wanted to know.

You can’t win the governor’s office without winning the city. And the Ring won’t let him.

TWO

I ts official name is the Choctaw Club. Founded near the end of Reconstruction, the club was formed under the pretense of a social organization. A social organization dedicated to promoting moral decency among the residents of New Orleans. In reality, the club was formed to promote the Democratic Party of Louisiana. To enact laws favorable to their white supremacist leanings. Jim Crow laws. Laws that dictated segregated facilities. Laws that instituted a poll tax. Laws that would ensure they seized control of the electoral machine.

The Choctaw Club’s members were society’s elite. Of its charter members, thirty-nine had held public office—city, parish, or state—prior to 1896. Six of its members were also members of the Democratic State Central Committee. Six other members were part of the caucus of New Orleans ward leaders that selected the ticket for the city election of 1896. Ten others had been candidates on that ticket. Throw in former governors, lieutenant governors, and former city mayors and it is easy to understand the Choctaw’s influence. Learning from the northern organization known as Tammany Hall, the Choctaws use patronage, political favor, violence, and election fraud to control the vote. The proposition is simple. Control the vote, control the city.

The Choctaws were ruled by a board of governors, each of the city’s seventeen wards having a representative. They are called the ward bosses. Nothing happens in their wards without their approval. But the foundation of the club, the go-getters, are those beneath the ward bosses. The backbone of the organization is the precinct captains. Captains that can be hired or fired at the whim of the bosses. Undying loyalty is a necessity for precinct leaders. Undying loyalty and inhuman energy. Their duties are many and require great stamina.

With their headquarters in a saloon, a grocery, a drugstore, or a firehouse, the precinct leaders are required by the ward bosses to make house-to-house canvasses to see that every prospective machine voter in the precinct is registered and that their poll tax is paid. They are required to know every voter. The voter’s profession. Their habits. Their interests. The name of their wives and children. Their likes and dislikes. Any information that could be used to persuade a vote in one direction or another.

Frequently, the precinct leader makes the rounds to see if city services are being furnished regularly. If not, he is the man to fix the problem. He is also the man to cut through the red tape of government. Favors given for voting correctly. Immediately, the precinct leader welcomes new families moving into the neighborhood. This is especially true for newly arrived immigrants. Almost single-handedly, the precinct leader will help them adjust to their new surroundings. Their new state. Their new country. Single-handedly and with a single purpose. Voting the right way.

In many wards and many precincts of New Orleans, there are the poor. People call them the struggling masses. Within those struggling masses, there are always those individuals in need of charity. It is the responsibility of the precinct leader to report needed charity to the ward boss. It is the one thing that leaders are not allowed to do themselves. Only the board of governors can dispense charity. And they do it willingly after an investigation proves the intended recipient deserves it.

In the years since its inception, the name Choctaw Club has become synonymous with other names. The Old Regulars. The Machine. The Regular Democratic Organization. The Ring. And my mother was right. They hated Huey P. Long.

I thought about the Choctaws or the Ring, as my mother had called them, as I stood on the front veranda smoking a cigar. I thought about how they would work feverishly to keep the hillbilly Long from the governor’s mansion until the front door opened and interrupted my thoughts. Looking at the door, I saw Colette close it behind her. Taking the cigar from my mouth, I smiled at her.

Please forgive my mother, I said. She often speaks out of turn.

Colette looked at me and gave a fake smile. No need for that, Mr. Covington, she said.

Ryan, I told her. Call me Ryan.

Your mother would not approve. And I need this job.

I thought for a minute before saying anything. Let’s do this, I finally said. Call me Ryan when my mother is not around and Mr. Covington when she is. Deal? I stuck my hand out in her direction.

I could see her eyes cloud with uncertainty, and she stood silently, considering my proposal.

I don’t bite, I told her. And I’m not like my mother. I’m much nicer.

The last comment made her smile. A real smile. A smile that melted my heart and washed away my weariness. Deal, she finally said and took my hand in hers and gave a small shake.

You leaving for the day? I asked, still holding her hand. The softness of her skin made me tremble, and I released my grip, hoping she had not noticed.

Yes, she answered.

May I walk you home? My question was almost a plea.

It’s not that far, she said. I can manage.

Where is not that far? I wanted to know.

Constance Street, she replied as she moved toward the steps.

The Irish Channel.

Yes, she said. The Irish Channel.

City officials define the boundaries of the Irish Channel as Magazine Street to the north, the Mississippi River to the south, First Street to the east, and Toledano Street to the west. It is a suburb of the Garden District. Officially, no one knows how the community got its name. Some say the name comes from the influx of Irish immigrants during the 1830s. Others claim the name derives from the streets of mud that dominate the area. Streets of mud turned into rushing rivers during the rainy summer season. Both theories are believable.

It is true that during the 1830s, thousands upon thousands of Irish immigrants arrived and settled in New Orleans. Their arrival and debarkation on Adele Street can be contributed to two things; an ever-growing famine in Ireland and the lies of unscrupulous shipping companies in need of expendable labor to dig the New Basin Canal. Prior to boarding the ships in Ireland, the immigrants were told New Orleans was close to the other Irish enclaves of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Most of those stepping onto the docks of New Orleans never left the south.

Homeless. Penniless. Owning only what they carried on their backs, the Irish stayed. Going to work digging the canal, they settled in. To house themselves, they built small wooden shacks, the Irish version of shotgun homes. Thousands died from their labors. Thousands more died from yellow fever. Despite the oppressive heat, the mosquitoes, the hurricanes, the seemingly constant death that surrounded them, they stayed.

From the start, the area developed a reputation of being clannish. A reputation of hating outsiders. Gangs patrolled the area and kept interlopers at bay. Gangs with colorful names like the