Editing St. Joseph, Louisiana (section)

==History==
The first store at what became St. Joseph was established around 1813 at what was then called John Densmore's Landing.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1993-04-28 |title=The story of Grant's March through Tensas re-told |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tensas-gazette-the-story-of-grants-marc/153289895/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |work=Tensas gazette |pages=25}}</ref> Unique for the [[Deep South]], St. Joseph was planned and developed in 1843 by European-American settlers around a [[New England]]–style [[village green]]. The downtown area along Plank Road is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref>Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, St. Joseph, historical marker, St. Joseph, Louisiana, 1982.</ref> The area around the town was developed for cotton plantations.

From 1862 to 1865, Louisiana was part of the Confederacy's [[Trans-Mississippi Department]], and St. Joseph operated as a landing for a major route across the [[Mississippi River]]. According to the historian [[John D. Winters]] in his ''The Civil War in Louisiana'', "Such a strong force of [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] [[cavalry]] occupied the [[Mississippi]] side opposite St. Joseph that all Federal attempts to close the transit in January [1865] ended in failure."<ref>[[John D. Winters]], ''The Civil War in Louisiana'', [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge]]: [[Louisiana State University Press]], 1963, {{ISBN|0-8071-0834-0}}, pp. 413</ref>

In 1879, the [[Jesse James]] gang robbed two stores in far western Mississippi, at [[Washington, Mississippi|Washington]] and [[Fayette, Mississippi|Fayette]]. The gang absconded with $2,000 cash in the second robbery, crossed the river, and took shelter in abandoned cabins on the Kemp Plantation south of St. Joseph. A posse caught up with them, attacking and killing two of the outlaws, but failed to capture the entire gang. Among the deputies was [[Jefferson B. Snyder]], who later was a long-serving [[district attorney]] in northeastern Louisiana. Jesse James was killed three years later by one of his own gang members in [[St. Joseph, Missouri|St. Joseph]], [[Missouri]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/madison/bios/snyderjb.txt|title=Jefferson B. Snyder|publisher=[[New Orleans Times-Picayune]], April 15, 1938|access-date=July 22, 2013}}</ref>

St. Joseph is the entry community to [[Lake Bruin State Park]] located on Lake Bruin, an [[oxbow lake]] of the nearby [[Mississippi River]].

On August 13, 2013, local resident Fuaed Abdo Ahmed took two women and a man hostage at the [[St. Joseph Bank Hostage Standoff|St. Joseph branch of Tensas State Bank]], saying he wanted passage out of the country. After releasing one hostage, he shot one hostage and critically wounded a second before being fatally shot by police.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thetowntalk.com/viewart/20130815/NEWS01/308150018/Tensas-bank-suspect-blamed-ex-girlfriend-s-family-wanted-leave-country|title=Tensas bank suspect blamed ex-girlfriend's family, wanted to leave country, August 15, 2013|author=Associated Press |newspaper=Alexandria Daily Town Talk|access-date=August 15, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130815191814/http://www.thetowntalk.com/viewart/20130815/NEWS01/308150018/Tensas-bank-suspect-blamed-ex-girlfriend-s-family-wanted-leave-country|archive-date=August 15, 2013}}</ref><ref name=policereport>{{cite news|url=http://theadvocate.com/home/8612131-125/la-bank-hostages-killer-had-no|author=Jim Mustian|title=Man who killed hostages in north Louisiana bank had mental illness|date=March 12, 2014|newspaper=[[The Advocate (Baton Rouge)|Baton Rouge Advocate]]|access-date=March 13, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313181529/http://theadvocate.com/home/8612131-125/la-bank-hostages-killer-had-no|archive-date=March 13, 2014}}</ref>

===Political history===
[[Image:Tensas Parish Library and Museum IMG 0273.JPG|thumb|left|The Tensas Parish Library is housed on the ground floor of this former residence, built c. 1858 by a local merchant and partially restored in 1964. The upstairs contains the Plantation Museum.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.librarytechnology.org/lwc-displaylibrary.pl?RC=5829|title=Tensas Parish Library|publisher=librarytechnology.org|access-date=July 17, 2013}}</ref>]]
[[Image:Downtown St. Joseph, LA IMG 1244.JPG|thumb|Plank Road is the main street of St. Joseph.]]
[[Image:St. Joseph, LA, Town Hall IMG 0269.JPG|thumb|St. Joseph Town Hall]]

When St. Joseph was incorporated as a town in 1901, planter and businessman William Mackenzie Davidson was elected as the first mayor of St. Joseph. Absent competitive politics, given the [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement of African Americans]] by the state constitution in 1898, Davidson was re-elected repeatedly, holding the position until his accidental death in January 1930.<ref>William M. Davidson obituary, ''Tensas Gazette'', January 24, 1930</ref> Davidson was a founder and the general manager of the powerful Panola Company, an agricultural business in St. Joseph. At one point it controlled 10,000 acres of valuable farmland.

Davidson also sat on the board of the Bank of St. Joseph, of which he later became the president. He worked to bring the USDA Agricultural Experiment Station to St. Joseph and [[lobbying|lobbied]] for construction of the Mississippi River bridge to connect the town to [[Natchez, Mississippi]].<ref>{{cite book|url=http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11082006-162523/unrestricted/jmreonasdiss.pdf|title=James Matthew Reonas, ''Once Proud Princes: Planters and Plantation Culture in Louisiana's Northeast Delta, From the First World War Through the Great Depression'', pp. 245-248|publisher=[[Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge]]: Louisiana State University Ph.D. [[dissertation]], December 2006|access-date=July 20, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921054752/http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11082006-162523/unrestricted/jmreonasdiss.pdf|archive-date=September 21, 2013}}</ref>

[[Edward L. Brown Sr.]] was born on October 20, 1952, to son of Leon and Beatrice Brown. He graduated from [[Grambling State University]] and is married to Betty S. Brown; the couple has four children. Brown was elected in 2000 as the first African-American mayor of St. Joseph, unseating the long-term white incumbent, Whitfield Jones (February 18, 1929 – August 11, 2013) in the [[nonpartisan blanket primary]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.obitsforlife.com/obituary/754431/Jones-Whitfield.php|title=Whitfield Jones obituary|publisher=obitsforlife.com|access-date=October 4, 2013}}</ref> Brown polled 447 votes (64.9 percent) to Jones' 242 (35.1 percent).<ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, Primary election Returns, October 7, 2000</ref>

Brown was repeatedly re-elected. In the November 6, 2012, election, Brown secured his fourth term with 384 votes (57.7 percent) over Leslie Dandridge Durham, a fellow Democrat who polled 282 votes (42.3 percent).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/11062012/11062012_54.html|title=Louisiana election returns, November 6, 2012|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.gov|access-date=November 11, 2012}}</ref>

Prior to 1968, each parish in Louisiana, regardless of population, elected at least one member to the [[Louisiana House of Representatives]]. This method of representation resulted in under-representation of the more heavily populated and urbanized parishes. The US Supreme Court ruled on the principle that state legislatures had to establish districts with roughly equal populations, in order to support the principle of equity of "[[one man, one vote]]". It said the states had no basis for geographic representation in their legislatures. Given the rural bias and dominance in many state legislatures, many states had not accomplished redistricting since early in the 20th century, although it is to be conducted as needed after every decennial census.

The last state representative member to represent only Tensas Parish was [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] [[S. S. DeWitt]] of [[Newellton, Louisiana|Newellton]] and later St. Joseph. DeWitt represented Tensas Parish from 1964 to 1968. After the state legislature created districts that were roughly equal in population, DeWitt succeeded in being elected again, to serve from 1968 to 1972. He and [[Lantz Womack]] of [[Winnsboro, Louisiana|Winnsboro]] together represented Franklin, Tensas, and [[Madison Parish|Madison]] parishes. Womack defeated DeWitt in the 1971 primary. DeWitt later switched to [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] affiliation.

===Water system===
In December 2012, St. Joseph residents were placed under an advisory to boil their drinking water because of problems with the aging municipal water system. A mechanical failure at the town treatment plant caused a sudden drop in the water supply. In March 2013, a water main cracked. There are leaks at the base of the city water tower. [[Louisiana State Legislature|State Senator]] [[Francis C. Thompson]], whose district includes Tensas Parish, sought emergency funding for repairs to the system, which serves about seven hundred customers.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20130510/NEWS01/305100040/Funds-sought-fix-St-Joseph-s-water-system|title=Funds sought to fix St. Joseph's water system, May 10, 2013|newspaper=Monroe News-Star|access-date= May 11, 2013}}</ref>

In 2016 the town had failed to obtain an approved town audit for the financial year ending 2015, needed by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's Office to enable progress on the funds. In 2015, it received $553,000 in grants towards the issue. More than $6 million is available once the town's audit is approved by the Auditor's Office.<ref name="s293">{{Cite web |last=Lenox |first=Bob |date=January 22, 2016 |title=Water woes plague St. Joseph |url=http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/2016/01/22/water-woes-plague-st-joseph/79172870/ |access-date=2024-07-18 |website=The News-Star |language=en-US}}</ref>

In December 2016, [[Governor of Louisiana|Governor]] [[John Bel Edwards]] vowed to replace the entire St. Joseph water system. Engineer [[Bryant Hammett]], a Democratic former state representative who performed similar work in his native [[Ferriday, Louisiana|Ferriday]], predicted the project, estimated at $9 million, could be finished by  September 2017. Residents were urged not to drink the water or use it in cooking, but they can use it for bathing or washing clothing. The Governor's Office of Homeland Security was providing bottled drinking water for St. Joseph residents.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/2016/12/19/governor-st-joe-residents-were-you/95605126/|title=Governor to St. Joe residents: 'We're in this with you'|newspaper=The Monroe News-Star|author=Greg Hilburn|date=December 19, 2016|access-date=December 20, 2016}}</ref>