The traveler who takes the Ruddock exit from I-55 might notice that there is no Ruddock; just empty swamp dead-ahead and the Greenway going off in both directions.
Welcome to Ruddock! The view from the end of the I-55 Ruddock Exit Ramp
There was once a large, thriving sawmill town here in the 1890s named for Chicago lumberman C.H. Ruddock. It had up to 1,200 workers producing millions of board-feet of lumber cut from thousands of acres of virgin cypress forest in the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the community was wiped out by the West Indian Hurricane of 1915 which took a terrible toll on the people and farms in this area. A more detailed version the history of Ruddock and information about the Hurricane of 1915 are in the “History” section of this site.
A birds-eye view of a southern sawmill similar to the one at Ruddock.
Many artifacts collected from the Ruddock site can be viewed at the Louisiana Treasures Museum & Educational Center at 10290 Hwy. 22 in Springfield, west of Ponchatoula, LA.