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Demolition of the old National Grocery building, located next to McDonald’s, began at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. The building had been vacant for 19 years.
Heritage Haulers, co-owned by Jacob Duhon of Abbeville, was awarded the contract to demolish the 46-year-old building.
Two excavators began demolition at the center of the structure and will proceed outward, removing walls, AC units, ventilation ducts, and other materials.
After the interior is cleared, the four exterior walls will be removed. Debris will be sorted and transported to a landfill outside Vermilion Parish. The concrete slab will remain.
The project is expected to take at least two weeks to complete.
The demolition is being carried out by the same company constructing a new plasma center in the former National Grocery parking lot.
Earlier this year, “PP Abbeville La. Owner LLC” was listed as the owner of the new plasma center, which is under construction and expected to open this summer after demolition of the old National Supermarket building is complete.

Unless the Vermilion Parish Police Jury changes its mind, the city of Abbeville is set to take ownership of two new buildings by May 1.
The city council approved the agreement by a 3-1 vote, accepting the police jury’s offer concerning the two buildings in Abbeville.
The police jury is expected to vote on transferring ownership of the two buildings to the city of Abbeville at its meeting on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the courthouse.
Six months ago, the police jury proposed that the city assume ownership of the former Hibernia Bank building on Charity Street and the old library building downtown.
The sole condition for Abbeville to accept the offer is that the Sheriff’s Office may continue to house its detective unit on the third floor of the bank building at no cost.
If the city agrees, the police jury will transfer both buildings, valued at over $1 million combined, at no cost.
Before proceeding, the city council engaged David Hamer of Vermilion Architects, LLC, to inspect the building and provide cost estimates for necessary repairs and full restoration.
Hamer presented a slideshow to the council and Mayor Roslyn White, detailing photos and cost estimates for repairs, including windows, eight rooftop air conditioning units, and water leak remediation.
He divided the project into two phases.

Phase One

Phase One addresses immediate needs, with an estimated cost of $605,000 and includes the following repairs:

• Repair sinking foundation ($45,000)
• Reseal the third-floor wall and all third-floor windows ($275,000)
• Repair the flashing and roof ($24,000)
• Wall repair ($20,000)
• Repair columns ($55,000)
• Replace two 12-ton air conditioning units and repair the remaining five units ($75,000)
• Replace 26 windows and repair exterior stucco ($116,000)

Phase Two

Phase Two is estimated to cost $445,000.
• This includes purchasing five new 12-ton rooftop air conditioning units.
• Restoration of the architectural stucco design on the building’s exterior ($260,000).
The total cost for both phases ranges from $1 million to $1.5 million, depending on the extent of repairs the city chooses to undertake.
Hamer concluded that, based on his assessment without removing the exterior stucco, the building’s structural framework appears to be in good condition.
. “To summarize, the property at 407 Charity Street presents a unique opportunity for the City, but it is one that carries significant immediate financial and legal obligations. The City must recognize that the $560,000 appraised value is only the starting point of the investment.
“Our assessment identifies approximately $740,000 in essential and proactive capital repairs and $260,000 of optional repairs required to stop active water intrusion, stabilize the foundation, and bring the building into compliance with life safety and ADA codes. While the visible portions of the primary steel and masonry frame appear structurally sound, a definitive assessment is not possible as much of the framing remains concealed. Furthermore, its systems and envelope require a significant program of restorative maintenance. There is always the possibility of additional costs arising with the structure when remediation begins.
“Additionally, there is the cost for the renovation schemes, which could be upwards of $637,000.00.
“The decision to pursue this acquisition should be made with the understanding that to transform this building into a safe, legal, and functional municipal workspace, the City will need to commit to a multi-phased restoration plan. Acting on the essential repairs in Phase One will protect the building’s current value and prevent further interior deterioration.”

Abbeville High School senior Khandi Shuford signed on Thursday with Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, to continue her power lifting career while she pursues a degree in criminal justice.
Shuford, who carries a 3.7 GPA and just won her fourth state championship, chose Midland because of its reputation as a power-lifting school and its proximity to home. Midland’s women’s team has also won the national collegiate title four years in a row.
“Midland is a private university whose main focus is power lifting,” Shuford said. “They have other sports, but power lifting is their thing.
“I like that it’s in Nebraska. I really want to broaden my horizons, and to do that I need to be somewhere else.”
Shuford’s interest in powerlifting began when she was a kid, watching her older brother Chuck compete in high school. The sport consumed her when she began competing five years ago.
“It really started when I’d go watch my brother,” Shuford explained. “At first, I didn’t see myself doing it because all I’d do was sleep in the bleachers. But once I started competing, my love for it just kept growing. Now I don’t ever see myself not doing power lifting. It’s my passion, and my life revolves around it.”
Shuford thanked her parents, Charles and Katreet Shuford, and her longtime coach, Travis Werner, for always believing in her and pushing her to be the best she could be.
“Coach Werner has been with me since I started,” Shuford said. “He has faith in me and sees my potential. My parents weren’t light on me. They kept me disciplined and made sure I stayed on top of things.”
“Khandi has achieved everything a high school powerlifter could possibly achieve,” said Werner. “She was a regional, state, national, and world champion. What I am proudest of is what the titles don’t reveal. She brings good spirit and fierce determination to every workout.
“That attitude is infectious and elevates the lifting of all the girls who train with her. Midland is getting more than just an elite lifter; they are getting a great teammate.”
Shuford will leave for Nebraska in late July or early August.
“I’m excited, and I’m ready,” she exclaimed.

traveler and writer Charles Dudley Warner rowed early one spring morning, “while the dew was still heavy” down Bayou Petit Anse. “in Petite Anse means “little cove.” The bayou runs along the west side of Avery Island, then flows generally south into Vermilion Bay. Warner described his delightful boat ride in a long article about “The Acadian Land” in Harper’s Magazine in February 1887.
“Mullet were jumping in the glassy stream, perhaps disturbed by the gar-fish, and alligators lazily slid from the reedy banks into the water at our approach,” he wrote. “All the marsh was gay with flowers, vast patches of the blue fleur de lis intermingled with the exquisite white spider-lily, nodding in clusters on long stalks; an amaryllis (pancratieum), its pure half-disk fringed with delicate while filaments. The air was vocal with the notes of birds, the nonpareil and the meadow-lark, and most conspicuous of all the handsome boat-tail grackle, a blackbird, which alighted on the slender dead reeds that swayed with his weight as he poured forth his song. Sometimes the bayou narrowed so that it was impossible to row with the oars, and poling was resorted to, and the current was swift and strong. At such passes we saw only the banks with nodding flowers, and the reeds, with the blackbirds singing, against the sky. Again we emerged into placid reaches overhung by gigantic live-oaks and fringed with cypress. It was enchanting.”
Warner’s interest in the Acadian country in south Louisiana may have been partly inspired by a visit he made in 1874 to Nova Scotia and recounted in a travel journal called Baddeck, And That Sort of Thing (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1891). Excerpts from his accounts of both visits can be found in a little book. In Acadia, The Acadians in Story and Song, compiled by Margaret (Minnie) Avery Johnston (F. F. Hansell & Bro., New Orleans, 1893).
Margaret was not an Acadian. She was the daughter of Daniel Dudley Avery (1810-1879), the first Avery on Avery island, and Sarah Craig Marsh (1818-1878). Her interest in the Acadians was stirred by an interest in spinning and weaving, and by the financial panic that began in the United States in 1873, spread to Europe, and brought on a depression that lasted for nearly a decade.
She wrote in the introduction to her book, “I have been led to undertake the compilation of this little volume by a desire to enlist the interest of the public in the Acadian people of Louisiana. Brought up in the neighborhood and personally acquainted with many of them, my family learned to respect … and to admire the many excellent qualities that distinguish them.
“In the period of great depression through which Louisiana has passed … [the Acadians] felt the touch of want in homes where formerly reigned a rude plenty. It was then that it occurred to us that if their handwoven fabrics of cotton, grown by themselves, could be brought to the attention of the art-loving public, a remunerative field would be open for their industry.”
She and her sister, Sarah Avery Leeds, worked to find markets for the cloth with such success that in March 1893 the Abbeville Meridional, boasted that Acadian cottonade had gained so much prestige that “in some of the most fashionable of New York and New Orleans’ mansions, you will find all the draperies, portieres, lambrequins and table scarfs made of the products of the looms of the Attakapas Acadians.”
The reason for the Meridional report was that in the spring of 1893 Louisiana and the rest of the nation were making plans for the upcoming Chicago World’s Fair, and that the Avery sisters were working to create an exhibit featuring Acadian weavers. They were successful. Margaret reported in her introduction that “their simple handicrafts of spinning and weaving” were showcased at the fair.
Margaret may have been aware of Warner’s Acadian pieces because he apparently visited Avery Island. He doesn’t say so specifically in his essay, but says in his Petite Anse narrative that after visiting a community on Bayou Tigre, “We went home gayly and more swiftly, current and tide with us … with … much pleasure [while viewing] the wide marshes through which we voyaged.
“When we landed and climbed the hill, and from the rose-embowered veranda looked over the strange land we had sailed through … we felt that we had been in a country not of this world.”
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.