L&A Railroad Establishes Princeton

Mrs. Perry at the Central Point South Princeton train sign in Princeton, La, 1996.
Kenneth R. Perry collection: 1998.048.003.

In the early history of Bossier Parish, the steamboats and later the railroads influenced the movement of the populace. Communities like Fillmore and Bellevue suffered because they were not selected as depots when the railroads came in 1884 (VS&P) and 1888 (Cotton Belt), respectively. Likewise, Haughton, Benton, and Plain Dealing grew because they did become depots during that time. In 1909 the L&A Railroad was built establishing Princeton as a depot. The first train passed through on November 2, 1909.

We can’t be confident as to how Princeton got its name because there are at least two different accounts. Both accounts agree that the community was named for early settler Joseph Wilson Prince, Sr. It has been written that Princeton was named when it was established as a train depot. One account is that Joseph’s wife Dollie McDade Prince was given the honor of naming the community for the sake of the train depot. Her first choice was Princeville. Since this name was already in use at another train depot, she decided on Princeton and was quoted as saying, “Princeton is a pretty name.” However, Joseph Wilson Prince, Sr.’s great-granddaughter, Dorothy Watson Glover, believes that Ella Cooper Watson named the community after her beloved deceased stepfather, Joseph Wilson Prince, Sr. (1833-1902).

The railroad caused the little community of Princeton to change from being just a quiet farming community to a bustling railroad depot community. On March 24, 1910, it was announced in The Bossier Banner that Mr. Burge of Minden was erecting a store.

In an article found in The Bossier Banner on August 11, 1910, the writer describes Princeton as having “a store, a freight room, and several residences,” but not a post office. The writer notes, “things bear the appearances of being exceptionally busy during weekdays for a little flag station.” He also writes that Mr. F. E. Burrage served as the ticket and freight agent for the L&A while running his store and raising chickens. Bellevue sawmill was one of Burrage’s freight customers shipping thousands of feet of lumber, such as pine cross ties and piles. “A number of the piles, sixty feet in length and skinned from end to end ... were consigned to the creosoting plant in Bossier City and will later be shipped to West Texas, where they will be used in the construction of a new railroad.” The writer finishes by opining that, “Princeton is admirably located to become a trading and shipping point of local importance and no doubt it will develop into such within the next year or so.”

By September of that same year, the first Post Office was opened at Princeton with Allie J. Burrage as postmaster. On January 31, 1919, the post office was discontinued in Princeton with all mail being sent to Haughton, but it was re-established on October 30, 1922, with Clara M. Crawford as acting postmaster.

Over the next few years, Princeton continued to grow. By 1914 it had a sawmill that was producing about “20,000 feet of lumber daily.” Their railroad depot went from being a “little shack” to “a large and commodious depot.” An express office was planned along with the promise of telegraph and telephone facilities. A new school building was constructed and filled with new desks and equipment. “Land in and around Princeton was beginning to be hard to find.” And apparently so were wives according to an article by an unknown writer in The Bossier Banner on March 5, 1914, “Princeton can boast of a high, salubrious, free-from-malaria atmosphere, of an intelligent, broad-minded and progressive community, and six or seven of the handsomest, most industrious and good all-around young bachelors that can be found anywhere. If you girl readers doubt this last statement come and see for yourselves.”

By the beginning of 1915, the cross arms and insulators arrived for the telephone lines which were run by Cumberland Telephone Company in April. Finally, the telephone box was installed in May, making it possible for the Princeton community to communicate with the outside world via telephone.

To learn more about Princeton or Bossier Parish history, visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center at 2206 Beckett Street in Bossier City.

Note: The History Center's collection database could use more historical photographs etc. of Princeton, La. If you have any you would like to donate; please contact the History Center today (318.746.7717). If you do not wish to part with your photographs, but would like to share them, we are happy to scan them to add to our collection.

By: Amy Robertson

Upcoming Genealogy 101 Program

Are you interested in genealogy, but don't know where to begin? This program is designed to get you started in the right direction. You will learn where to search for information, how and why to cite your sources, proper formatting, and what sources you have free access to with your Bossier Parish Library card.

Upcoming Program with Guest Speaker

Upcoming Bossier History Program

The Early History of Fillmore

Dove A. Horton, Sr. with his family in front of their Fillmore home, formerly Connell's Inn, C. 1903.
Thelma Horton Porter Collection: 2003.011.008e

Around 1835 settlers came to the beautiful hill lands of what is now known as Fillmore. Fillmore is believed, by many North Louisiana historians, to be the oldest European settlement in Bossier Parish. “At one time, Fillmore was the most important town in Bossier Parish.”   

Fillmore was originally called Connell’s Crossroads named after its founder Thomas Dixon Connell. “Crossroads mercantile establishments in the 1800s were the centers for information, the post office and the source of innumerable personal, household and farm items.” “Fillmore probably exemplified the idea of “Bossier’s Crossroads” more than any other local community.”  

In May of 1852, Connell’s Crossroads was renamed Fillmore after the 13th President of the United States, Millard Fillmore. Fillmore is located eight miles south of Bellevue on the “Old Wire Road.” The “Old Wire Road” was the first road across north Louisiana wilderness. It began as a Native American trail. As settlers moved in, it became a stagecoach road making the passage from Monroe to Shreveport a bit easier. It also served as a Pioneer route to Texas. After 1847 it became known as the Wire Road because of the parallel telegraph lines that ran along with it. A commercial stagecoach operated along this road with stagecoach changes made at the Connell Inn, which was built around 1848. For $12, a person could ride the stagecoach 120 miles from Monroe to Fillmore.  

Before the Civil War, Fillmore enjoyed great prosperity with the community being distinguished for its wealth and cultural background. Surnames of early settlers include the McDades, Connells, Platts, Forts, Hickmans, Hillmans, Murffs, Sandidges, Reeds, Beauchamps, McClanahans, Hamiltons, and many others. Many of these early settlers are buried in the Fillmore Cemetery, which sits on land that was donated by Thomas Dixon Connell. Thomas Dixon Connell and William Purvis Haughton were the first two people to be buried there.  

In 1847, one of the first Methodist churches in Bossier Parish was built in Fillmore on land sold from Thomas Dixon Connell for $1. In the fall of 1871 when Marion Britt relocated his family to Fillmore, he recorded the village as having “three churches (Methodist, Baptist, and Christian), a Masonic Lodge, Griswold’s Academy, several large mercantile establishments, a large horse barn (that also housed the stagecoach), and considerable population.”  

On June 20, 1850, Connell’s Crossing received its first post office with Thomas A. Snider as Postmaster. The post office was discontinued on June 26, 1867, but it was re-established December 12, 1870. Then, on January 10, 1881, the post office was discontinued again, and to this day, there is still no post office in Fillmore.  

One of the oldest schools in North Louisiana was the Bossier Academy at Fillmore. The earliest evidence of this school can be seen in an advertisement looking for a qualified teacher for Bossier Academy in Fillmore that ran in the South-Western on July 25, 1855. After the Civil War, Lyman Griswold came to teach at Fillmore Academy and Normal School. He not only provided a sound education for the children, but he was also credited with turning out qualified teachers.  

When the Civil War broke out between the north and the south, the abled body men of Fillmore enlisted in Louisiana’s 19th Infantry Regiment, the Robins Greys. Captain Loudon Butler was commanding officer of the Robins Greys and he led them away from their Fillmore homes to Camp Moore on Monday, September 23, 1861. They “went away to fight for a cause they believed to be right. They marched gaily away to the strains of martial music, some never again to see the red hills of their ancestral homes.”  

In 1884 the VS&P Railroad came to Bossier Parish passing through Haughton. In 1885 Fillmore residents began to leave their homes for Haughton. Dr. Luther Longino wrote, “The glamour of moving trains and a railroad center, coupled with bad roads between these two points, forced upon the denizens of Fillmore the inevitable result: the village’s decline and fall. The crash was made complete, when at a later date the L&A Railroad (April 2, 1909) pushed through to Shreveport on the north of Fillmore, Establishing Princeton, and still farther, dividing what business Haughton did not take. Fillmore read these inexorable laws of business, and in a frantic effort to hold the community together went into the dairying business, which was carried on for several years...”  

To learn more about Fillmore or any of Bossier Parish’s communities, visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center at 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City. 

By: Amy Robertson