SAM ZEIGLER JR: BUILDING UP THE NAVY FOR SEA AND AIR. PART 1, SEA

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th, or semiquincentennial, birthday. A branch of the United States military, however, has already sailed past that milestone. On October 13, 2025, the U.S. Navy hit the big 2-5-0. That date commemorates when the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1775, and authorized a purchase of two merchant ships to convert to warships for its fight against the Naval superpower, Great Britian.

Samuel Jacob Zeigler, Jr., or Sam Zeigler, as he was known, was born in Bordeaux, South Carolina on July 29, 1889, to Samuel J. Zeigler Sr. and Howelle Zeigler. Samuel J. Zeigler Sr. was also born in South Carolina but had already made a name for himself, forming corporations and hundreds of acres of real estate deals, in the young city of Shreveport and the communities of north Bossier Parish. Samuel J. Zeigler Sr., in fact, is considered the “father” of the north Bossier town of Plain Dealing, developing it alongside the Cotton Belt Railroad. His first wife, Sallie Vance Zeigler, with whom he’d had five children, only two survived childhood, died in 1886. S.J. Zeigler returned to South Carolina for a time and married Howelle there in 1887. When Sam Jr. was a year old, the family returned to north Louisiana, where Sam’s sister Pola was born. Like his father’s landholdings and businesses, young Sam’s life straddled both parishes of Caddo and Bossier, and much of his time was spent in Vanceville and Plain Dealing.

On December 21, 1907, the Shreveport Journal reported that Sam Zeigler had been appointed as a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The paper reporter Sam had been a student at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge for two years, where he received preliminary military training and was a champion marksman. The paper praised Sam as “well qualified, both physically and intellectually” to withstand the academy’s rigid entrance requirements.

Sam Zeigler’s Navy career began at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) with a fore-deck view of historical change. His matriculation in 1908 coincided with the final years of the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901- 1909), one of the era’s foremost naval strategists. Roosevelt’s goal was to expand and modernize the U.S. Navy with no less an aim than to see America galvanized as a world power.

The naval academy, which opened in 1845, had also been growing into its own, taking on the look and traditions that are well-known today. The famous USNA fight song and unofficial Navy anthem, “Anchors Away,” had recently been composed by the academy’s music and choir director. “The New Naval Academy,” a major construction plan to replace the inadequate and already-aging physical plant was nearing completion. In the five years leading up to Zeigler’s arrival on campus, new buildings were opening up annually. In addition, new ships, and even the first modern submarine, were arriving in the same timeframe. In 1911, the first naval aerodrome was established at Annapolis and experimental flights began at the school.

At Sam Zeigler’s graduation in 1912, when he was fourth in his class of 156, his class tossed their hats in the air - the very first Academy graduates to perform the now famous tradition. After his graduation, Ensign Zeigler had some time for vacation, visiting folks back in Louisiana. The Bossier Banner-Progress reported this visit on July 25, 1912, and quoted a Shreveport newspaper to inform readers, “The grade of ensign corresponds to the rank of lieutenant commissioned in the regular military service of the United States. At his graduation, Ensign Zeigler scored in the highest orders of merit. He is a product of Shreveport. His record, which is very creditable, is an index of his future promotion. It is to be hoped that he will in time reach the rank of admiral.”

Sam was assigned to the USS Minnesota of the Atlanta Fleet, based out of Norfolk, Virginia. In 1912, the ship operated in the Caribbean, then patrolled the Mexican coast between 1913 and 1914 during the Mexican Revolution. In January 1914, Sam Zeigler transferred to temporary duty at the navy yard in Philadelphia and was ordered to the Postgraduate School for Naval architecture in Annapolis. By summer of 1915, he was appointed Assistant Naval Constructor. Continuing in Naval architecture, he was sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and earned an M.S. degree in 1916. Taking advantage of his Cambridge location, Zeigler also completed a two-year business course at Harvard and reported for duty in the Boston Navy Yard’s hull division.

The Boston Navy Yard, which began in 1880, was one of the Navy’s first ship-building yards. When Sam Zeigler arrived, the shipyard was in the midst of the “New Navy’s” switch from wooden to steel-hulled battleships and was on the cusp of gearing up for the Great War, later known as WWI, that was raging in Europe. In August 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had declared the United States would continue its neutral position, and the Navy’s job was to protect that neutrality by stationing destroyers at the Boston Navy Yard. But following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May 1915, Wilson advocated for U.S. military preparedness to protect American interests and called upon Congress to authorize construction of over 150 warships. On April 6, 1917, following unrestrained German submarine warfare that sunk several American ships and claimed American lives, the U. S. declared war on Germany.

The Boston Navy yard was teeming with repairs on an endless supply of damaged warships and support vessels, as well as outfitting and commissioning a steady stream of private ships for use in warfare. Zeigler’s skill directing this kind of work was eventually needed in the Navy’s ship repairs department in Brest, France. The U.S. Navy’s primary role in the Great War was troop transportation. The sheer numbers of “fresh” American troops continually arriving to fight the increasingly war-weary Germans made the ships carrying them targets of German attacks. The Navy’s ultimate success in moving these troops became a main reason that Germany signed an armistice agreement on November 11, 1918, cutting short Zeigler’s time in France.

Watch this column for a continuation of the story of the Naval career of Shreveport-Bossier’s Samuel J. Zeigler, Jr. and its window into U.S. Naval History, including Naval aviation and WWII. If you have World War I or II family photos or stories to share, please visit or contact us at the History Center. We will scan them and return the originals if that is your preference. We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA, 71111. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Navy 250 logo
• Portrait of Samuel J. Zeigler, Jr. Modern Biographical Files in the Navy Department Library, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, DC
• Boston Navy Yard in 1916, Boston National Historic Park photo

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Bossier Parish Police Jury – Now and Then

 In Bossier Parish, the highest local authority is the Bossier Parish Police Jury (BPPJ), administrating the parish from the Parish Courthouse in Benton. For many people, local government has become something abstract and nebulous, lost in the sea of attention paid towards national affairs. However, local governments, like the BPPJ, will affect you more in your day-to-day life than anything on the national scale. In Louisiana, Police Juries hold similar authority to County Commissions in other states. Originally founded via a state legislative act in 1811, the powers of police juries were expanded to function as proper legislative-executive bodies after the granting of statehood to Louisiana. Parishes were divided into wards, with each ward electing a juror to that parish’s police jury as their local representative. Functionally, police juries are granted broad local powers by the Louisiana state constitution. Some of these powers include the levying of taxes and enacting/enforcing local ordinances and regulations. When it comes time to elect police jurors, the elections are held during odd years under an open primary system, ensuring that police jury races are not lost in the excitement surrounding larger national elections. Police juries elect a president and vice-president from amongst themselves, tasked with leading the body.

      

                              

The current twelve members of the BPPJ are President Glenn Benton, Vice-President Tom Salzer, Lynn Beaty, Phillip Rodgers, John Ed Jordon, Julianna Parks, Chris Marsiglia, Jimmy Cochran, Doug Rimmer, Pam Glorioso, Julian Darby, and Keith Sutton. The BPPJ is also joined by an administrative staff that works with the Police Jury to see to the implementation of the body’s agenda, advising the police jury as needed. The BPPJ administrative division is made up of the Parish Administrator, who is tasked with running the day-to-day organization of the Police Jury, the Parish Secretary, tasked with record keeping for the Police Jury and assisting with the agenda in a variety of ways, and the Parish Treasurer, who is tasked with managing the budget and assets of the BPPJ. There are a further twelve divisions under the BPPJ umbrella, all of which exist to ensure that the Parish government can serve the public. While some parishes, such as Caddo Parish, have moved away from the police jury system, Bossier Parish has maintained the BPPJ as its legislative-executive body.

The Bossier Parish Police Jury began with the parish in 1843. When the jurors first met on June 19, 1843, they did so in a small cabin located at what is today the Bayou Bodcau Reservoir, the Long/Durden house. While there is some confusion as to who was the first BPPJ president, the names of the jurors are known: William Crowley, William Burns, Isaac Lay, B. J. Williams, Joseph Graham, John C. Scott, Andrew J. Lampton, and J. A. W. Lowey. According to Parish Historian Clif Cardin’s 1993 book, “Bossier Parish History The first 150 years, 1843-1993,” William Crowley was the first police jury President. However, according to “History of Shreveport and Shreveport Builders, Volume Two,” which contains a section specifically about Bossier Parish, it was William Burns who first presided over the Jury. The eagle-eyed among you will notice there are only eight jurors, compared to the twelve of today. When the parish was initially founded, the population was obviously much lower than it is today, and as the parish grew, so too did the need for more members. Regardless, it was there at that little cabin that these first jurors would select the new parish seat of ‘Freedonia’, which would later become known as Bellevue. The initial courthouse, not the cabin where the police jury first met, was built sometime before 1845 as a wood structure, before being replaced with a brick courthouse in 1853. The parish would remain there until the late 1880s, when the vote was held to move the parish seat to the current home in Benton.

Today, located on Highway 157 in Bellevue, there is a historical marker commemorating the first Bossier Parish Police Jury meeting and the then town of Freedonia. While the seat and building may have changed, the Bossier Parish Police Jury has led Bossier Parish for over 182 years, here’s to 182 more.

If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. 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/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images: 

• 1853 Map of Bossier Parish (BPL-HC Record 1997.008.001)
• Only known full photo of 2nd Bellevue Courthouse (BPL-HC Record 0000.004.114)
• Police Juror Henry Mitchell in-front of the Durden House during restorations (The Shreveport Times, Nov. 30, 1998, photo by Mathew Minnard)
• 1st Police Jury Meeting Historical Marker (The Bossier Press, May 06, 1964, photo by Bill McFarland)

Article by: Jonah Daigle

Racquet Club Changed North Bossier Recreational Landscape

In the late 1970s, with Bossier City growing, a group of city residents felt something was missing. They believed there weren’t adequate recreational facilities for the burgeoning populace in north Bossier. They envisioned a place where sports like tennis, racquetball and swimming could be enjoyed, and good food could be had in an on-site restaurant. This vision was realized in March, 1980 with the opening of the Bossier Racquet and Swim Club.

Located on Airline Drive, just north of Interstate 220, the $1.3 million club featured ten tennis courts – six hard surface courts and four clay surface courts, four racquetball courts, a swimming pool, an exercise room, pro shop and restaurant. Other amenities included a half-mile jogging track, locker rooms and saunas. The cost to access all of this at that time was a $500 membership fee and monthly dues of $35.

Efforts to establish the facility had officially started more than a year prior when the group of residents filed paperwork with Louisiana’s Secretary of State, setting up Bossier Racquet and Swim Club Incorporated, according to an item in the November 16, 1978 edition of The Shreveport Times. Afterwards, zoning changes were sought, allowing the proposed site of the club to become a neighborhood business district. These efforts culminated in a groundbreaking ceremony on April 18, 1979. 

Although work on the clay courts was incomplete, the club opened to much fanfare on Saturday, March 1, 1980. Members and their guests had the opportunity to view the facility’s offerings at a preview party the day prior to the opening. In a March 1 Times article, one of the club officers gave his reasoning behind the club’s construction. “We have not had any real tennis and racquetball facilities in Bossier,” he is quoted as saying. “It was time for us in Bossier to strike out.”

Through the next 23 years, the club hosted events including tennis tournaments – some featuring professional-level players, swim meets, racquetball tournaments, receptions, corporate events, etc. The Airline High School tennis team practiced and played its home matches there. I was fortunate to witness many of these goings-on as an employee in the pro shop during most of my years in college, doing everything from restringing tennis rackets to helping with tennis court maintenance. It was a great job to have as a student, allowing me to take classes early and work afternoons and evenings. I met some wonderful people, and during my off hours, played a bit of tennis. But the racquet club’s heyday eventually came to an end. Its good fortunes did not last.

By early 2003, the club was not doing well. In January that year, its doors were closed, permanently as it turned out. According to an article in The Shreveport Times of June 7, 2003, the club “had several hundred members” at the time, but its operators during that period, who the article states were leasing the facility, “were months behind in rent, finally prompting the property owners to evict them and put the site up for sale.” The city considered buying the club, but ultimately partnered with the police jury and school board to develop a new recreational area that became the North Bossier Park and Bossier Tennis Center. In January 2004, the club was demolished. Now standing in its former location are the restaurants Another Broken Egg Café and Andy’s Frozen Custard. But memories remain of a time when a new sports offering came to north Bossier and provided both kids and adults an opportunity to improve athletic skills, establish friendships, and enjoy some friendly competition.

If you have any information relating to the history of Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding that to its research collection. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. 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/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images: 

• Advertisement/The Shreveport Journal, Dec. 12, 1979
• Club demolition/The Times, Jan. 12, 2004/photo by Jessica Leigh

Article by: Kevin Flowers

Handmade in Bossier, 75 Years Ago: Flags of the United Nations

“United Nations Flags Made Here” said the caption in the Planters Press newspaper of Bossier City, La. above a photo of Mrs. W. P. Belcher holding the United Nations emblem and Mrs. W.E. Richie with a standard flag-sized cloth laying on the table before her. No, a new factory didn’t open up, though the two factories that did exist in the U.S. for making the flags were already cranking them out as fast they could in the Fall of 1950. Taking up the slack for the increased demand for U.N. flags caused by the onset of the Korean War and the United Nations Day of late October, were women and girls of Home Demonstration Clubs and 4-H clubs that were affectionately referred to at the time as modern-day “Betsy Rosses.”

When North Korea attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950, the United Nations, formed on October 24, 1945, took action that invigorated much of the American public’s interest in and support of the U.N., even among folks who originally did not have high hopes for it. It was American farmers, under the urging of Mr. Albert Johnson, the head of The National Grange, a longtime fraternal organization for farmers, who conceived of the United Nations countrywide flag-making effort. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture through its Cooperative Extension Service endorsed the project and provided the leadership to promote the effort. The Extension Service tapped the National Committee on Boys and Girls Work (later known as the National 4-H service Committee and National 4-H Council) to make kits of materials and patterns for the flags, and got the woman and girl-power to put them together through its Home Demonstration (women) and 4-H Club (youth) membership.

The kits contained iron-on patterns of the U.N. logo design, blue cloth, and directions to make the 3x5 foot flag. Clinics for making the flags were planned for Oct 16th through Oct. 23rd of 1950 though Bossier actually started on Sept. 22nd when the home demonstration council had its regular meeting. The Louisiana State Agricultural Extension Agent, H.C. Sanders, assured potential makers that the plans were simple. (The fact that the Bossier Parish “champion United Nations Flag Maker,” Mrs. Clotelle McCoy of the Bossier City Home Demonstration Club, was so-designated because she made two flags, with each one taking twenty hours, seems to belie that statement!)

Ultimately, 25 flags were completed by the Bossier Parish home demonstration and 4-H clubs. The flags were presented to local mayors, including Bossier City mayor Hop Fuller, high school principals, home demonstration club buildings and other schools. The hope for the project, according to head agent Sanders, was that it would provide the participants, especially the youth, not only a practical stitchery lesson but a broader understanding of the U.N. and U.S. efforts for world peace.

Anything to which people pledge their allegiance attracts scrutiny, and the U.N. flag making project was no exception. The program had critics who said it was un-American. One of these critical groups was the Veterans of Foreign Wars under its National Commander, Charles C. Ralls, who disparaged it as an effort to supersede the American flag. The major U.S. farm organizations released an editorial to rebut this claim, saying:

“Kremlin propagandists who have been attempting to discredit the United Nations have been given invaluable assistance by uninformed and bigoted American groups seeking to block display of the UN flag on October 24, United Nations Day; The farm organizations unanimously reaffirm their confidence in the United Nations as the greatest single instrument for peace in the world; The project…was accepted immediately by members of the national labor, business, veteran, civic, fraternal and educational groups; Display of the United Nations flag along with the American flag on October 24 will be an expression of the same unity on the home front that exists on the battlefield of Korea where the men of free nations are fighting and dying under the United Nations banner...” - Joint statement by American Farm Bureau Federations, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Farmers Union and National Grange, 10/12/1950.

Perhaps as a rural locale with a strong farming tradition and an exceptionally strong Home Demonstration program, U.N. flags were completed and raised, often accompanied by elaborate ceremonies, throughout Bossier Parish. The publisher of the Planters Press boasted in his newspaper that they were the first in the parish to fly one of the flags at their printing plant on Traffic Street in Bossier City and that he personally hung it. The following week his paper gave a detailed example of U.N. Day (October 24th) 1950 at a local school with Benton High School’s event, which was sponsored by the Benton 4-H Club:

The entire student body, faculty, T. L. Rodes, Supervisor of Schools, Home Demonstration Club members Mayor Carter and Mrs. Voncell Lank associate Home Agent, attended the celebrations. A letter to all youth of the nations was read by Mary Alice Stinson. The United Nations flag, made by 4-H members of that club, was advanced on a staff by George Stroud along with a United States flag of the same size advanced by John Paul Jones. The audience then pledged allegiance to the United Nations Flag. Barbara Grisham gave the history of the flag. A panel discussion on United Nations was led by the 4-H Club, president, Bobbie Jones…

If you have any information, stories, or photos about the UN Flag project or other Home Demonstration or 4-H local club photos or stories, we would love to see them or to copy them, with permission, to add to the History Center’s research collection. Please come to the History Center to do research or see our exhibits at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 10-8, Fri 10-6, and Sat 10-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Image:  H.C. Sanders, Director of the Louisiana Agricultural Extension Service, and Miss Ellen Le Noir, State Home Demonstration Agent, hold up the first United Nations flag made in Louisiana to launch a statewide campaign to make the flags in preparation for United Nations Day on October 24, 1950. Bossier Parish Home Demonstration Clubs and 4-H Clubs answered the call and U.N. flags were raised throughout the parish on that day. Photo from The Planters Press Thu, Oct 19, 1950 · Page 4

Article by: Pam Carlisle 

Fun with Words, North Louisiana-Style

It’s November, and Thanksgiving, and the holiday season, is just around the corner. If you’re lucky, you may be spending extra time with family and relatives, perhaps in multiple generations. Some inter-generational differences can cause friction, while others are cause for fascination, or at least gentle amusement. The different words and phrases used by folks of different generations, or even different geographic areas, can be an example of the latter.

Recently, I’d been feeling “under the weather.” A coworker asked if I’d been “feeling peaky” then asked if I knew what that meant. I replied I did, and that it must be like the expression my 87-year-old father used, feeling “peaked,” pronounced PEAK-id. That saying reminded me of the expression my grandmother used for feeling poorly. She’d say, “I feel punk”, which as a kid in the 1980’s used to make me howl with laughter, envisioning my grandmother in the punk rocker style of the time.

This banter about old or regional expressions brought to mind a resource in our collection, a 1961 PhD dissertation from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge called, “A Word Atlas of North Louisiana” by Mary Lucille Pierce Folk. This study showed that for words or expressions of ‘feeling somewhat poorly,’ the most common word at that time in North Louisiana was not “peaky” or “punk”, but “puny!”

Mrs. Folk used students from Louisiana Tech University to interview informants in every North Louisiana parish and then mapped the responses parish by parish. The students were also informants themselves, representing the “young” cohort. They also interviewed middle-aged and elderly people.

Food names are featured prominently in Mrs. Folk’s study. Many of these entries reminded me of the various food terms I had to learn when I moved here as a native New-Englander. For example, “English peas” was listed as the most common term for the tiny, round green vegetable sometimes known as “green peas,” or up North, generally just known as “peas”. Here, as Mrs. Folks’ study showed, peas have an entire vocabulary unto themselves. “Corn on the cob” was most commonly reported in the study as “roasting ears.” The term “syrup” is used for cane syrup (definitely not maple syrup), followed by the term “molasses.”

Peanuts were “peanuts,” at least to 58% of respondents, which still left 40% of respondents to call them “goobers.” Unlike most other words in the entire study, a rare one-hundred percent of respondents called a “fried cake with a hole in the center” a “doughnut.”

Some other interesting findings were: Seventy-seven percent of informants called a jail a “calaboose,” a word I’d never heard before. Another word, “courting” was favored over the word “dating,” chosen by 50% of respondents, versus 21%. That left another quarter of respondents with intriguing expressions, such as “wooing” or “sparking.” (Those terms sound much more exciting than my Yankee grandmother’s term, “get next to!”)

One of the most fascinating of the word maps for this time of year is the one for the greeting used on Christmas morning. For the vast majority of respondents (70%), the greeting was “Christmas gift!” as opposed to “Merry Christmas!” Unsure that I was actually reading correctly that “Christmas gift” was used as an exclamation, I did some online searching for the term. In fact, it was used as an exclamation, but it was more than just that. At least pre-1950, the saying was a way to claim the first gift of the day. By the time the custom trickled down over the years, there wasn’t necessarily a particular prize like getting the first gift, but there was still some glory to be had in being the first in the family to say it, according to a writer in “Garden & Gun” magazine. She remembered her South Carolina grandmother calling on the telephone at practically the crack of dawn on Christmas, even though they’d be seeing her later in the morning at a family Christmas brunch, just to be the first to say, “Christmas gift!”

It can be captivating to page through Mary Folks’ dissertation to see the words and phrases used commonly a mere 60 years ago that, in many cases, have now all but disappeared. The dissertation is available online, and can be downloaded for free, at LSU’s Digital Commons website. Or, you can visit the History Center to read a copy. Be forewarned that Mary Folk studied and mapped the vocabulary of white residents only, in 1961, and many of the terms used, especially for racial and ethnic groups, are today considered categorically offensive.

Mary Folk’s dissertation is essentially a precursor to the nationwide collection, the Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE. DARE’s fieldwork was carried out in 1965–1970 and had both black and white informants. The collection was so extensive that the first volume was originally published in 1985 and the fifth not until 2012. In 2013, a sixth volume of maps and supplements came out, as well as the first digital edition. The DARE project at the University of Wisconsin–Madison continues to update the online addition on a quarterly basis. add to and revise its content online.

The Bossier Parish Libraries do not carry this extensive resource but there’s an intriguing 100-word sample list available for free at daredictionary.com. Another fun linguistic resource, for which the Chief Editor of DARE served as an advisor, is the documentary film “American Tongues,” which is available to stream for free with your library card through Kanopy. The film’s summary quips: “Southerners talk too slowly. New Yorkers are rude. New Englanders don't say much at all. Anybody who lives in the U.S. knows the clichés about how people in the various parts of the country handle the English language. “American Tongues” is the first documentary to explore the impact of these linguistic attitudes in a fresh and exciting manner.”

If you need help accessing Kanopy, contact or visit us at the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center. You can also visit us to peruse our oral histories collection to hear or read local dialects. We are located at We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA and are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Map 1307 from “A Word Atlas of North Louisiana,” Ph.D. dissertation of Mary Lucile Pierce Folk, Louisiana State University, 1961
• Map 1302 from “A Word Atlas of North Louisiana,” Ph.D. dissertation of Mary Lucile Pierce Folk, Louisiana State University, 1961

Article by: Pam Carlisle