and our local editor, gary hebert, thought we should preserve this site. >> my husband gary hebert was the founding editor of the "plaquemine post" newspaper. the engineers for the louisiana department of highways decided that since the lock was closed, that they would tear it down and put four lanes across this area. my husband loved the lock, so he fought them from the very beginning. in 1969 he wrote about it in his editorials that it was the worst thing that could happen to plaquemine. but the highway department had the power. we didn't have much and they went ahead and made plans to destroy the lock. in the meantime, gary enlisted the help of the louisiana office of tourism. with their help, he prepared papers to have the lock put on the national register of historic places. this took place in the early '70s. so once it was placed on the national register, it could not be torn down. of course, people were angry with us because they wanted traffic moving. they didn't like waiting in traffic. so we became very unpopular in our own town. as time went on, advertisers dropped their adv