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

Haughton High Mascot Has Changed Through the Years

Buccaneers, Vikings, Panthers, Bearkats, Tigers, and Lions, these fearsome high school mascots can all be found in Bossier Parish. And each has remained the same through the years, except for one. For Haughton High School’s mascot, the image of a swashbuckling pirate hasn’t always been the case.

Haughton High was established in 1886 in a small, two-room building with a handful of students, and today has an enrollment of approximately 1,400. Much has changed on the campus through the years, including its mascot. While conducting some research recently on another subject, I came across local newspaper accounts from 1939 through 1946 of Haughton High sports events - mainly football, basketball and baseball - that referred to the teams as the Travelers. Items such as one from The Planters Press of November 13, 1941 were common: “The Haughton Travelers football squad stayed at home last Friday and defeated the scrappy Dubach eleven, 28 - 0, before a large crowd of fans. This makes six wins and one loss for the Travelers this season,” the item states. Surprised to see Haughton called the Travelers, I began looking into the origin of the name and attempted to find a reason for its selection to represent the school. Unfortunately, these same newspaper accounts weren’t any help.

Searching through newspapers such as The Planters Press, The Bossier Banner-Progress, The Shreveport Times and The Shreveport Journal, I had no luck uncovering any information about the school mascot name. Other than game scores and details of how Haughton won or lost, articles mentioned nothing about how or why the name Travelers was chosen. Time to find another source.

Former Haughton High Principal Gene Couvillion knows the school well and shared with me a piece of information that I hadn’t expected. Another mascot name existed before Travelers. Through much of the 1930s, Haughton High was known as the Lumberjacks. A search of sports stories from that era in local newspapers confirmed this bit of campus history. A story in The Shreveport Times from December 23, 1937, states, “Bossier High School Bearkats defeated the Haughton Lumberjacks in a hard-fought basketball game Tuesday night on the Centenary College court.” An article in The Times from 1932 highlights a football game between Bossier High and the Haughton Lumberjacks.

So, Haughton High School had not one but two other names prior to Buccaneers. Perhaps Lumberjacks was chosen because of the timber industry’s significant presence in the parish. Travelers could have indicated the school’s teams played more away games than at home. Thus far, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding documented evidence to substantiate these theories. But I’m unaware of any other current parish high school that has had more than one mascot name.

Airline High adopted the Vikings moniker with the school’s opening in 1964. The Panther mascot was used by Parkway when the school was a junior high and continued after the transition to a high school in 1968. Bossier High began calling its sports teams the Bearcats in 1926, although the spelling was changed to Bearkats about 11 years later. Benton High has been known as the Tigers since at least the late 1920s. An item in The Shreveport Times from October 21, 1927 mentions a basketball game between Elm Grove High School and the Benton High Tigers. Incidentally, Elm Grove High, now a middle school with the name Eagles, called itself the Panthers. The Lion has been the mascot for Plain Dealing High School since at least the early 1930s. The Bossier Banner-Progress from October 8, 1931, has an article about an upcoming Lions football game. “The Plain Dealing High School Lions will engage the eleven bearing the colors of Sarepta High School here this afternoon …” the article states. Prior to desegregation, the African American high schools in the parish had mascot names such as Bears, Wildhogs, Yellow Jackets, Dragons and Panthers.

It seems Haughton High began calling itself the Buccaneers sometime in the late 1940s. An issue of The Shreveport Journal from October 15, 1948, contains a brief mention of a Haughton football game against Mooringsport and uses the name Buccaneers. By the fall of 1950, the name was being used extensively in sports stories about the school. But regardless of its mascot name, Haughton High is an integral part of our parish’s education system and can be rightly proud of the role it plays in preparing students for life ahead.

If you have any information relating to the history of Haughton High School’s mascots, 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: 

• Haughton High Buccaneers mascot/image courtesy Haughton High School
• Sports headline/Bossier Banner-Progress, Nov. 15, 1956

Article by: Kevin Flowers

The Lumberjack Ghost: A Spectral Story of Real Dangers

 Local legends abound in nearly every American town. Investigating the origins of some of these scary stories often reveal actual historical happenings. Let’s explore the history that could be behind a ghost story from the Plain Dealing area in north Bossier Parish about a lumberjack ghost who appears with large boots and carries an axe.

Timber has been a thriving economic activity here since the last two decades of the nineteenth century, when Northern forests had largely been over-harvested, and the untouched forests here became more accessible after the clearings of the Great Raft of the Red River. Historically, timber is Louisiana's top agricultural crop and is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Forests cover a little over fifty percent of Louisiana's land area. Forestry and forest products are not only a valuable source of income for the state of Louisiana, but also for Bossier Parish. The value-added to Bossier Parish alone is over $15 million dollars per year.

Dangerous occupations or places are often the start of legends. Perhaps they are meant to serve as warnings. Being a lumberjack, someone who went into the woods to cut down and transport trees, was an especially risky occupation. In fact, by 1948, due to the logging industry’s many deadly or life-altering dangers, like loss of a limb, the Plain Dealing Progress reported on April 8th that the U.S. Secretary of Labor L.B. Swelling had issued a revised Hazardous Occupation Order prohibiting the employment of anyone under 18 years old in all occupations in the industry, with some exceptions such as certain clerical, repair, clean-up, tallying, or camp jobs.

First, the act of cutting and then felling the area’s tall trees could be deadly. Through the early 20th century, lumberjacks would cut down entire forests using axes or large, two-person hand saws. It was difficult, dangerous work even with the arrival of more modern equipment like chainsaws. In 1959, Earl Whatley Jr., a 32-year-old El Dorado, Arkansas man and logging company employee was reported in the Hope Star newspaper as killed when struck by a falling tree.

For lumberjacks, cutting down the trees was only the beginning of the complicated, risky lumber business. Logging also required some lumberjacks to live in very basic camps far away from the nearest towns and cities. Camp life itself was dangerous, with fights and violence breaking out among the isolated workers. The S.H. Bolinger Company’s timber history in the History Center’s book collection points out that these melees were very typically alcohol-fueled.

Timber had to be transported to sawmills for processing from dense forests, miles from the nearest road or railroad. In the early years of the industry, timber was moved using teams of oxen, and later, motorized trucks. Serious accidents could occur while loading the timber. In 1936, Dalton Dees, a 22-year-old man from Springhill in Webster Parish was crushed to death when a log rolled on him while he was loading the logs onto a truck. A luckier lumberman, 32-year-old M.B. McDonald, suffered non-fatal injuries that were reported in the Friday, June 16, 1939, Shreveport Journal. A log rolled onto him when he was loading a truck in the woods near Clear Lake in DeSoto Parish and fractured both his legs and one ankle. Serious or fatal road collisions involving logging trucks were also common. Their heavy loads made such accidents especially dangerous.

The timber, or wood, was split into planks, or “lumber,” in sawmills. The machinery in the mills was highly dangerous. A photo of the inside of a Bolinger company sawmill shows a sign that warns: “Safety First. All moving machinery is dangerous. Visitors Keep Out.” With flammable materials like sawdust floating in the air, fire was also a threat in the mills. Numerous reports of sawmill fires in north Bossier Parish are seen in newspapers from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. These include the 1895 Cavill & Cavill sawmill and planing mill fire, the 1901 Bolinger sawmill fire, which entirely destroyed the mill, and the 1904 Alden Bridge fire, which started in the boiler room of the Whited and Wheless lumber company’s plant and destroyed the sawmill, the blacksmith shop and much of the company’s train cars, but spared the planing mill and much of the lumber once the wind changed. A 1938 fire at Alden Bridge, in contrast, burned down the planing mill, but spared the sawmill, thanks to the arrival of Bossier City firefighters and their modern equipment.

To learn more about forestry in Bossier Parish, or local ghost stories and the splinters of truth within them, visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center at 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City. Or let us know some stories you have heard! The History Center is located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. 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 or chilling 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: 

• Oxen pulling logs, Bolinger logging camp near Red Land, North Bossier Parish, C. 1915. Rodney Bellar Collection, Bossier Parish Libraries History Center
• Fighting a sawmill fire C. 1940. Gloria Purcell Saucier Collection, Bossier Parish Libraries History Center

Article by: Pam Carlisle