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    Bossier City
    Bossier City
    Bossier City
    Ebook148 pages33 minutes

    Bossier City

    By Kevin Bryant Jones

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    About this ebook

    Bossier City sprung up around cotton fields, railroads, steamboats, and factories as the little town across from Shreveport. Today, the city thrives as the fastest growing in Louisiana. The tight-knit community of citizens who have called Bossier City home for several generations has grown to include an influx of newer transplants and Air Force personnel. "Old Bossier" remains the heart of the city, and its established families and businesses are proud to retain the simple nature of the past. This book remembers days of community and closeness, capturing the era when people built their own houses out of materials they had, walked downtown to a diner or market, and saw the first bomber fly overhead. This collection captures 1920s architecture, hardworking residents, and downtown roots but also celebrates the emergent and progressive nature of Bossier City. Today, the arts are flourishing, the stores are busy, the Barksdale Air Force Base is the jewel of the city, and the strong community identity is continually evolving.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 8, 2015
    ISBN9781439651810
    Bossier City
    Author

    Kevin Bryant Jones

    Kevin Bryant Jones, a Louisiana Tech University graduate, has worked in Bossier City for 10 years and has seen the city thrive and grow. His wish is for all Bossier City residents to understand the richness that their city has to offer.

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      Book preview

      Bossier City - Kevin Bryant Jones

      Martin.

      INTRODUCTION

      When compared to other cities in the South relative to its size, Bossier City is a very new city. Although Bossier City can trace its roots to 1839 and the Elysian Grove plantation, it was in the 20th century that the city really boomed.

      Bossier City has been known by many different names. In the 1830s, it began as the Elysian Grove Plantation. Shorty before the Civil War, it began to be known as Cane’s Landing, named after James and Mary Cane, who owned the land where steamboats began docking across from Shreveport, Louisiana. As early as 1884, the area around the Elysian Grove Plantation and Cane’s Landing was being called Bossier City.

      In 1843, the parish was named after a famous Louisiana militia general and planter, Gen. Pierre Evariste John Baptiste Bossier. In the 1840s and 1850s, hundreds of people a week were migrating through Bossier City on their way west. Many of them were attracted to the area’s natural beauty and decided to stay in the region on the east side of the Red River.

      Confederate batteries were placed at Cane’s Landing to protect the Red River’s crossing, and Fort Kirby Smith was erected in the area where Bossier High School is now located to protect Shreveport from eastern advances.

      Most people in the area at this time were making a living from agriculture. Subsistence farmers grew enough food to feed themselves and their families, while a few plantations sold cotton or other cash crops. Social life revolved around the churches, mostly Baptist and Methodist. Life began to change after 1877, when the Union army stopped occupying the area. Residents enjoyed more leisurely activities and events, and life remained unchanged for the area around Cane City for most of the late 19th century. In the 1880s, Cane Plantation began selling off its lots for new residences, and a town of a few hundred people started to form across the river from Shreveport.

      In the 1870s and 1880s, some major changes in transportation had massive impacts on what was known then as Cane City. First, Shed Road was built to cross the swampy bottoms that separated Cane’s Landing from the rest of Louisiana. It was an instant success and ran from 1874 to 1886, charging people tolls to use it. This nine-mile stretch of covered and raised road allowed farmers from the outlying hill country to bring their cotton and crops to Shreveport. The construction of dams and levees to help control the Red River began about the same time. In 1884, the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad Bridge was built over the Red River and brought rail traffic east to Bossier City. As all Bossier City residents know, it is a major convergence of rail lines. The decision to run those lines through the area played a huge role in Bossier City developing much faster and greater than its sister cities around Bossier Parish. The businesses and residents began settling on the western end of Bossier Parish after the rail lines were laid down.

      In 1907, another rail bridge was built, and in 1908 oil was discovered in Bossier Parish. Several mills and a brick factory sprang up, and a charter was granted for the village of Bossier in 1907. Hamilton Cotton Oil Mill was built in the area where Hamilton Road now runs. It made a variety of products from cottonseed and the oil the seeds produce. Between 1910 and 1930, the population of Bossier City tripled.

      In 1925, a catastrophic fire raged through Bossier City, causing over $100,000 in damages. It began on Cane Street, which is

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