In the spring of 1951, a celebration began in the North Bossier Parish community of Plain Dealing. As temperatures warmed and outdoor activities beckoned, dogwood trees lining roadways and hillsides in the area awoke from their winter slumber and dressed the landscape in color. And for the first time, Plain Dealing formally recognized and embraced this splendor with an organized event. The Dogwood Drive was born. Through the valiant efforts of citizens, this new annual event achieved early success, but changes eventually led to its slow demise.
A year prior, the idea of acknowledging and sharing the beauty that graced the community was proposed in an editorial by F. G. Phillips, editor of The Plain Dealing Progress weekly newspaper and former principal of Plain Dealing High School. The editorial, published in the March 23, 1950 issue of The Progress, mentions the much-acclaimed scenic drive among the dogwood trees of Palestine, Texas and asks if something similar could be enjoyed in Plain Dealing. “Much publicity has been given to the Dogwood Trail in the vicinity of Palestine, Texas … However, we are made to wonder each year as spring rolls round, if we are not overlooking a real opportunity by not giving more attention to the area just to the west and slightly north of Plain Dealing. … Let’s have our own dogwood trail right here in Bossier Parish,” he wrote.
The idea took root and grew to encompass the entire community. An article titled “Blessed with Dogwood: The Story of a Small Town Festival,” written by Plain Dealing resident and former History Center employee Kitty Coyle, references the community participation. “ … by the late spring of 1950, every group in town was involved in planning … including the Kadelphian Club, The Phi Delta Club, The American Legion, the P.T.A., the Home Demonstration Club, the Future Farmers of America, Boy Scouts, and all the churches.” The article, composed in 2001 for the 50th anniversary of Plain Dealing’s trail, describes various committees mapping the trail’s route and helping publicize it, establishing roadside parks and planning the opening ceremony. Having received an official name – the Plain Dealing Dogwood Drive - and secured the Plain Dealing Lions Club as a sponsor, the trail then awaited the hoped-for visitors who would travel its dusty roads, admiring nature’s beauty.
Following a preview party, attended by Louisiana Governor Earl Long on Friday, March 23, 1951, the drive opened and attracted more interest than many in the community expected. “Surpassing the prophecies of even the most optimistic, and dumbfounding the predictions of some of the Doubting Thomases, the first three days following the official opening of the Plain Dealing Dogwood Drive saw at least 15,000 people taking in all or a major part of the already famous scenic attraction winding for some 20 miles through the rugged terrain of Northwest Bossier,” states The Plain Dealing Progress of March 29. According to an item in the April 5 issue of The Progress, visitors from 25 states, including New York, Pennsylvania and California, came to see this natural wonder. Summing up that first year’s event, The Progress mentions in its March 20, 1952 edition that approximately 50,000 people visited during the drive’s four-week run.
That success continued in the second year and beyond as F. G. Phillips was chosen as president of the newly-established Dogwood Drive Association, created to oversee the drive, and a parade and the crowning of a dogwood queen were added. The whole affair came to be termed a festival. Letters from tourists praising the drive were published in The Plain Dealing Progress. One visitor called the drive “the most gorgeous scenery I have ever looked at.” In her article, Ms. Coyle wrote, “It is difficult to convey to those who did not live there what the Dogwood Festival meant to the people of Plain Dealing in the 1950s and early 1960s.” Unfortunately, circumstances conspired against this cherished event, causing it to slowly wither away.
The Dogwood Drive lost one of its greatest advocates with the death of F. G. Phillips in 1961. Within four years of his passing, the Dogwood Drive Association was apparently struggling. Long-time association secretary Athlene Cornish refers to this in an article in The Shreveport Journal on April 5, 1965 by saying that no one would agree to serve as president of the organization that year.
Clearcutting of timber in the forests along the Dogwood Drive route had also begun, devastating the dogwood trees and leading to the festival’s cancellation in 1965 and ’66. It resumed in 1967, but Ms. Coyle states in her 2001 article, “… it never regained its original splendor.” Gone were so many of the pink and white blossoms that once graced the landscape that the drive was discontinued as part of the festivities in 1991. Arts, crafts, food and entertainment became the primary focus points until the last festival was held in 2003. In an email to me, Plain Dealing Mayor James Cook said he is unaware of any current plans to revive a dogwood festival, although a Plain Dealing Community Festival is scheduled May 9 – 11.
If you have any information or items relating to the history of 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:
- 1951 Dogwood Drive brochure/History Center collection
- Visitors on the Dogwood Drive in 1963/History Center collection
- Headline from Bossier Banner-Progress, April 8, 1965
