The Hidden Legacy of Amite’s Historic Mansions: Inside Blythewood and Greenlawn
By James H. Sterling
Long before rail tracks carved through the pine forest, European empires fought over the region. Between 1783 and 1810, the area known as the Florida Parishes remained under the control of Spanish West Florida, completely separate from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Settlers eager for fertile soil pushed into Spanish jurisdiction to secure official concessions.
Blythewood Plantation rests on ground shaped by this exact frontier dynamic. The original tract came into private ownership through a royal Spanish land grant issued to settler Reliegh Self. While many colonial homesteads were rough log structures that quickly decayed, the Blythewood property transitioned into a sprawling commercial cotton plantation as American settlement flooded the territory. A substantial manor house rose on the site prior to the American Civil War, reflecting the enormous financial yields generated by enslaved labor in the Louisiana upland cotton belt. The property's early transition from a Spanish frontier parcel to a structured plantation estate embodies the rapid capitalization of Louisiana's rural interior.
James Sterling reports on renewable energy developments, climate policy, ecological conservation, and green tech innovations around the globe.
