Independence

Most of the Italian families who reached Independence from the 1880s had farmed in Sicily and southern Italy, but they started on south Louisiana cane plantations at about 25 to 30 cents a day. After years of saving they bought cheap cutover land and planted strawberries. By 1909 roughly three in four residents were Italian, and the schools bent their calendar around the picking. Families of northern European descent viewed the newcomers with suspicion, which drew the immigrants closer. A fire in 1913 took nearly every downtown commercial building, and the rebuilt brick blocks carry Italian surnames.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tickfaw State Park — 19 mi
  A floodplain park on the Tickfaw River, with cypress-tupelo swamp, bottomland hardwoods and about 4.75 miles of trails and boardwalks, plus a nature center with an 800-gallon river aquarium.

More markers nearby

• C.P.'s Station — 6.4 mi
• Church of the Incarnation — 6.5 mi
• Blythewood Plantation — 6.6 mi
• The Republic of West Florida — 8.0 mi