Although Shed Road is a well-known thoroughfare in Bossier City, its history and name origin may not be so familiar. Established more than 150 years ago, the original roadway was “unique in the annals of road construction,” states the Bossier Press newspaper of November 15, 1957. But what made it so distinctive, and why is it still worth noting today?
In the early 1870s, much of today’s North Bossier was, at times, swamp-like. The area extending east from Red River for approximately nine miles was low-lying and often impassable, particularly during inclement weather. An article in the June 28, 1934 issue of the Bossier Banner-Progress describes it as “merely a swampy flat, and when it was wet, the soil was just about like paste. Mules would sink in it to their bellies, and wagons would go down to the axles. When rains came in the fall, all transportation stopped until late the following spring or early summer.” For merchants and farmers wanting to get goods to market in Shreveport or downriver to New Orleans, not being able to travel through this quagmire was a major problem.
A man named John Watkins, an attorney and judge living in Minden, thought he had a solution. Although not trained as an engineer, this native Kentuckian sought and received a charter from Congress to construct a roadway with a shed roof, a novel idea for keeping the ground dry and preventing boggy conditions. And apparently an idea that had occurred to no one else. In his book, “Bossier Parish History – The First 150 Years 1843 - 1993,” Bossier Parish Historian Cliff Cardin wrote of the project, “This road was perhaps the first covered roadway, that did not use roadbed planking, constructed in the United States.” The November 15, 1957 Bossier Press called it “probably America’s first super highway.”
Construction of the road was privately funded, and although some sources claim work began in late 1872, others say it started in the spring of 1874. Workers dug parallel drainage ditches about 20 feet apart along the right-of-way and piled the dirt between the ditches on the road-bed, raising the bed enough to keep out surface water. Posts made from cypress were used to support roofing joists that held a center beam across which planks were bent to form the shed. The structure was wide enough to allow wagons and stagecoaches to pass each other, and despite having open sides, it prevented rain from turning the road to mud. As sections of the roadway were finished, travelers made use of them. The whole of Shed Road was completed in 1880.
When finished, this notable innovation was said to have stretched northeast from approximately where the Texas Street Bridge is located, along Shed’s present course between Benton Road and Airline Drive and continued straight east, ending on the north side of today’s Highway 80, just beyond the location of Louisiana Downs horse racing track. The Shreveport Daily Standard newspaper, in its July 20, 1880 edition, hailed the achievement, saying that it would “bring to our market a vast amount of cotton and trade from North Louisiana and Southern Arkansas, which has heretofore stopped at Minden or found its way to Camden (AR), and Monroe and other points on the Ouachita River. Judge Watkins should be presented with some substantial token of their appreciation … by our merchants.”
But it wasn’t simply pats-on-the-back and accolades from business people that Judge Watkins was seeking. He intended to turn a profit on this venture by charging tolls for use of the road. In the History Center collection is a book titled “Louisiana History Bossier Parish” by Samuel J. Touchstone that lists the amounts of some of the tolls. It states the driver or drivers of a team of four oxen and wagon was charged $1.50, while a team of four mules would cost $1. Simply walking on the road would set you back a nickel. According to the 1934 Bossier Banner-Progress article, these tolls were estimated to have generated a profit of $20,000 each year of Shed’s time as a private highway.
Eventually, another transportation highway – one of steel – opened and led to the roofed road’s demise. In 1884, the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad was completed through Bossier Parish, running the same direction as Shed Road, and as Mr. Cardin writes in his book, it “created many points … from which to ship goods and greatly decreased the need for the all-weather road.” By that time, portions of the shed structure had also apparently fallen into disrepair. In the August 10, 1882 issue of the Bossier Banner-Progress is the following item: “We hear a great deal of complaint from the citizens of Bossier, who have occasion to use it, about the shed road. If reports are correct, it is in a deplorable condition, and it is unjust to collect tolls for the privilege of using it. We hope Judge Watkins will look into the matter at once.” By 1887, Watkins had transferred ownership of the road to the parish. High costs of making repairs to the structure, coupled with its declining use for commerce, forced the parish to have the shed demolished by the end of that decade. Sadly, no photos of old Shed Road are known to exist.
In the History Center’s collection is a log book for 1880 in which Judge Watkins wrote details of work on the road. Coming later this year, the History Center will have a walk-in replica of old Shed Road. To see it and to learn more about the history of Bossier Parish, visit us during our open hours Monday - Friday 9-6, and Saturday by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/
Images:
- Map courtesy The Times, August 29, 1995
- Illustration courtesy The Shreveport Journal, June 27, 1935
