Quong  Son Platform

This photograph and the one that follows it, shows a shrimp drying platform at Manilla Village, established in 1873 by Chinese and Filippinos about 20 miles southeast of Lafitte. Betsy Swanson describes the platforms:
Large wooden platforms were built on pilings over the marshes, upon which the shrimp were sun dried after having been boiled in salt water in huge iron caldrons. The shrimp were raked and turned occasionally until they were thoroughly dried and then the heads and hulls were removed by a process called dancing the shrimp' in which men, women, and children, with their feet wrapped in burlap, treaded rhythmically uon the shrimp while chanting a song.
[Historic Jefferson Parish: From Shore to Shore, p. 137]
According Swanson, the Quong Sun concern was the first settlers at Manilla Village.

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