One Little Town's Story

Who was Jock Whitney (you didn’t ask, I know)?


Jock Whitney owned the New York Herald Tribune with Katherine Graham (Washington Post), who owned 45% with an option for 5% exercisable in the event of his death.
He was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom under Dwight Eisenhower, his frequent golf partner.



His uncle was John D. Rockefeller’s business partner; Jock shared business interests with Nelson Rockefeller.


In 1942, Jock married Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ex-daughter-in-law, Betsey (divorced James in 1940) and adopted her two daughters, Kate Roosevelt Whitney and Sara D. Roosevelt Whitney.


Whitney, the majority investor in Selznick International Pictures, put up half the money to option Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, although Selznick had no interest in a film version. When Whitney threatened to produce it on his own, Selznick relented and Jock put up more money. With a $3.8 million budget, the film generated a $390 million box office and won 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director Oscars.


During World War II, while serving as an intelligence officer, Jock was taken prisoner by the Germans in southern France. Enroute to a POW camp, he jumped from the train that was transporting him to a POW camp and escaped.


During the 1930’s, Whitney entered four horses in the Kentucky Derby.



One of Jock’s closest friends was Fred Astaire.


Depending on which conspiracy theorist one follows, Jock was allegedly involved in the Bay of Pigs, an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro and, through Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald, even the JFK assassination. All of that supposedly stems from various Freeport investments in Cuba and Indonesia. Conspiracy theories aside, Freeport’s nickel investments in Cuba, including lucrative government contracts, stockpiling provisions and foreign entanglements were constantly under intense Congressional scrutiny by House and Senate investigative committees for influence peddling at home and abroad. It's all out there on the web. And I place the most charitable interpretations on it all.


That’s where my interest in Jock Whitney begins – not in those conspiracy tales and Congressional scandals, but – in his role as Chairman of the Board of Freeport.


Enticed into a hostile takeover of the then-Texas company, Jock would then bankroll Freeport’s acquisition of sulphur rights on Lake Grande Ecaille in 1932, commencing plant construction in 1933.


Jock insisted that one third of his investment be allocated toward creating an idyllic townsite for the mine and shipping facility’s employees. So, while Grande Ecaille was under construction, 10 miles up a canal through the delta marsh, a typical mining company town was built - Port Sulphur, located on the Mississippi River about 60 miles south of New Orleans. From there, sulphur could be shipped all over the world.


The townsite was a “garden city plan” with houses, church sites, elementary and high schools, a hospital, community house, barbecue hut, lodge, reservoir, park, wading pool, tennis courts and baseball diamond.



That’s where I went to school, participated in Cub Scouts and Little League baseball and a host of other activities that made for quite the Leave It to Beaver existence, a true Pleasantville memory, all brought about when we had to relocate from 50 miles upriver, as Freeport’s nickel plant had been closed after Castro nationalized the mines overseas.


Many yesteryear Port Sulphur youth have a fond memory from 5th grade. All in a single day, we’d catch a train to Baton Rouge, visit the state capitol grounds, lunch at Picadilly, then take in a movie. Well, not “a” movie but “the” movie. Yes-sir-ee, Jock! You guessed it: “Gone With the Wind!”


There’s more to be told.

It ain’t pretty.

I mourn to this day.

Article:
After Katrina, a ghost town ** Louisiana village took direct hit, leaving it reeling and in ruins.


Video:
Port Sulphur – post-Katrina video