The Dixie-Overland Highway: The Coast-to-Coast Ancestor of US 80 (Part 1)

After the first massed-produced Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line in 1908, more and more Americans began a never-ending love affair with cars, along with a never-ending desire: Decent roads. The grass-roots answer to this wish in the early 20th century became a series of named, not numbered, “auto trails.” By 1917, one of the most important, if now-forgotten, of these trails was the Dixie-Overland Highway. The Dixie-Overland Highway, which later became US 80, was an ambitious sea to sea route that started in Savannah, GA, and ended in San Diego, CA. In between, it traversed Bossier Parish, went through the heart of Bossier City and crossed the Red River into Shreveport.

Mass-marketed in addition to being mass produced, the Model T automobiles continued rolling off the assembly lines by the millions. All these new automobile owners across the country wanted roads on which to not just drive, but to travel. Drivers didn’t wait for state highway departments to form and provide the roads they needed. In many states, like Louisiana, that would take another decade, or more. Instead, automobile owners formed automobile clubs, and these clubs advocated for and organized the original interstate “trails.”

The Automobile Club of Savannah, Ga. conceived of the Dixie-Overland Highway in July, 1914. First the club wanted a route across their state, but almost immediately they began to think bigger. The club conceived of the first Southern coast to coast route for automobiles. They wasted no time in forming an association, electing officers, and agreeing on a plan of operation to “promote the construction and use of a highway through the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.” The association determined a practical route and proudly determined that the Dixie-Overland Highway would be “the shortest, straightest, and only year-round (non-snowbound) ocean to ocean highway in the United States.”

On February 14, 1917, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association was officially incorporated in the State of Georgia for a 20-year period as a nonprofit organization headquartered in Columbus. Each state along the route had its own representatives. In Louisiana, where the highway followed the route of the V. S. & P Railroad, the state was represented enthusiastically by Caddo Parish businessman and planter Will Mercer, who was originally of Bossier and well-known in the parish. The whole eight-state association met yearly. In only its second year of existence, 1918, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association chose Shreveport, LA as the site of this meeting. The meeting started off dramatically with the hotly contested issue of which of two California cities would be the highway’s terminus, Los Angeles or San Diego. (Eventually, San Diego got the official honor). But one of the truly most urgent issues for the road had emerged only 2 months after the association formed; the United States’ entrance into WWI on April 6, 1917.

In 1918, the Dixie-Overland Highway Association focused its energies on obtaining “material assistance” from the Federal Government, urging it to put the newly-available asset of the “motor truck” to full and critical use. In an account of his own cross-country drive across the route in the spring and summer of 1918, which was published soon afterwards in the Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, GA, on Aug. 4th, Field Secretary Leland J. Henderson hoped to make the case that wartime was making the road indispensable, and that helping communities finish their part in it was in the federal government’s best interest. Of the return portion of his trip, Henderson wrote, “A vast amount of freight is now being carried on the highway. Motor trucks and burro teams have the preference. The retarding of highway construction is causing a noticeable deterioration of the roads in many sections. Rail facilities are largely absorbed in carrying war material.” Then he asked the reader, “How will we keep up the commerce of the country without a dependable system of roads?”

By 1919, California had completed its section of the Dixie-Overland route, and Georgia already had theirs complete for a few years. Louisiana was at about 65 percent completion, which was “near the bottom of the column in progress made,” according to Will Mercer, quoted in the June 12, 1919, Bossier Banner-Progress. This work was being done on a parish by parish, as well as a state by state, basis, so road quality could vary greatly. Arizona was well-ahead of game, paving their section in concrete. Elsewhere, providing an improved, “hard” surface could simply mean a dirt road that was graded, widened and extra hard-packed, or that gravel was laid.

Stay tuned here for the rest of the story next month. By the mid-1920s, state highway departments developed and a federal numbered system of highways was created, including US 80. In addition, come to World War II’s Day (Tuesday) next week, on Sept 8th at 10:30 AM in the Bossier Central Library Complex to hear speaker Wesley Harris, historian from the Claiborne Parish Library. Mr. Harris will speak about Highway 80’s role in WWII. He will show us the highway’s importance to the US military from coast to coast, with special mention, of course, of Barksdale, then a US Army Air Field.

The History Center remains closed while our new exhibits are completed, but watch our Facebook page or library website homepage for updates at www.bossierlibrary.org. You can also visit the website to use our online resources. You may call us at (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: 

• Snapshot of a Whippet touring car speeding west off Red Chute Bayou hill on what is now Highway 80, circa 1925. History Center photo, courtesy of Claude Corbett.
• Map of the Dixie-Overland Highway, 1918. From the American Geographic Society Library’s Digital Map Collection, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Article By: Pam Carlslie 

An Age of Steam – Steamboats and the Red River

The Red River is the single most important geographical feature in Bossier Parish, broadly determining the Caddo-Bossier border. The Red, as is common knowledge, was once subject to the Great Raft, a great log jam that had built up over several centuries. In the wake of the American westward expansion, however, the American Government declared the necessity of clearing the Great Raft to facilitate river traffic. This decision would have lasting cultural and commercial effects, to this day, by allowing the transit of steamboats to the Red River above Alexandria, and into North Louisiana.

It is important to note that the Red River in Louisiana can broadly be divided into two distinct regions: above Alexandria (here-in the upper-Red River) and below Alexandira (here-in the lower-Red River). The falls at Alexandria, which give Rapides Parish its name, presented a major hurdle to river traffic during several months out of the year. Furthermore, the periodic times of lowered river levels for the Red River meant that the steamboats that did transit the Red River were forced to adapt their designs to have a shallower draft, helping to prevent getting caught in the dangerous areas of low water. This feature of the river meant that while river traffic on the Red was possible, it could carry risks either financial or physical. Nevertheless, the upper-Red River in Louisiana would develop a rich tradition of waterborne transit, particularly through the use of steamboats.

Shreve’s expedition, after the clearing of a large portion of the Great Raft, allowed for the building of Shreve Town, which would late become Shreveport in the future Caddo Parish. Bossier, at the time of Shreve Town’s founding, was still a part of Claiborne Parish. While much of the region’s economic activity would remain on the western bank of the Red River, the communities on the eastern developed ways to the river and beyond. For instance, Shed Road was purpose built to allow the transit of goods from the hilly and marshy interior of Bossier Parish to the Red River, wherein the goods would be shipped south towards New Orleans.

Shipping agricultural output was not the only use for steamboats in the region. Sometimes they were used in more interesting and exciting ways. For example, according to the July 1, 1954, edition of the Bossier Banner-Progress, in 1892 there was severe flooding in the region due to extended rainfall. This flooding left people fleeing for higher ground, and the roads and railroads became untraversable. Herein came Sam Willer, a prominent shop owner in the then-small town of Benton. At personal expense to himself, Willer navigated to the Red River and gained the attention of a passing steamboat. He chartered the captain to take him to Shreveport to acquire desperately needed supplies, before both Willer and the unnamed ship returned to Benton, sailing through the flooded lowlands of Bossier Parish to deliver relief. It was thanks to the particulars of steamboat construction that allowed the vessel to navigate the treacherous waters.

As mentioned earlier, however, the use of steamboats on the Red River came with potential risks, as both the river and the ships themselves were prone to causing incidents ranging from snags, fires, boiler explosions, or even collision between ships. One such incident is the tale of the Nat Dortch. The Nat Dortch was a steamboat built in 1889 in Jefferson, Indiana. After being purchased in 1984, the Nat Dortch began running a line between New Orleans and the Red River. Within a timespan of just over one year, the Nat Dortch sank twice along the Red River after hitting snags, with the second incident taking place at what is now Lake Ninock near the Lock and Dam #5. In total, there were 150 steamboat losses along the Red River, just between the city of Natchitoches and the Carolina Bluffs located in the northern part of Bossier Parish.

All great things, however, must come to an end. With the coming of the railroad as a function of the United States’ westward expansion, the widespread usage of steamboats on the Red River declined. That is not to say that they vanished entirely, as even today the image of steamships on the Red River persists in the local culture.

Of particular assistance in writing this article was a 1999 history prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District titled Steamboats on Red River: A History of Waterborne Commerce And An Assessment of Steamboat Losses Along the Red River, Louisiana and Arkansas. This source, and a variety of others, are available in the History Center’s Circulating and Reference collections. 

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. The History Center is currently closed until further notice, though staff remains available. 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: 

• River boat at a landing on the Red River - BPL HC (2001.005.003)
• Sam Willer on a horse - BPL HC (2002.034.003)
• Wrecked steamboat near a bridge on the Red River - BPL HC (2001.051.017E)

Article by: Jonah Daigle

It’s an honor to be a “Jeep-O!”

Don’t You Want to be a Jeep-O? inquires the headline from an August, 1943 issue of Barksdale’s Bark, the newspaper of Barksdale Field, now Barksdale Air Force Base. The Barksdale Field “Jeep-O” program was officially sanctioned by Base Commander William B. Wright, Jr. earlier that month. By signing up to be a member of the “Jeep-O” program and affixing to their windshield a yellow sticker designating this membership in Barksdale’s share–a–ride club, even a civilian with no special skills or tools (besides an automobile!) could help the GIs at Barksdale during wartime. This assistance was critical because with World War II raging overseas, the personnel strength had doubled at Barksdale Field, and local public transportation was bursting at the seams.

Every driver who pledged to give a soldier a ride received a Jeep-O sticker for their car windshield. Wherever a Jeep-O driver happened to be headed, if it was in the same general direction of an on-base soldier wanting to get to town, or a married soldier trying to return home from the base during rush hour when there weren’t enough seats on city buses, a mere “civie” or civilian, (as well as other soldiers or official military chauffeurs with empty seats) could do their part and offer a ride. Soldiers were not allowed to hitchhike, but they were allowed to take a ride if offered. The yellow stickers, therefore, were as much for the benefit of the driver as for the passenger. The yellow “Jeep-O” sticker in the windshield reminded the driver to stop and offer their extra seat.

The Jeep-O programs began in Alabama for soldiers at Army Fort McClellan, thanks to the suggestion of some solders and with the organizing efforts of the local Kiwanis Club. Within a year, the idea had spread to 22 states. Starting May 24, 1943, National Jeep-O Week was observed in all 48 states. As for the origin of the name, the “Jeep” in “Jeep-O” appears to be referring to both the soldier and the vehicle in which he could ride. The word "jeep" was used as early as World War I as U.S. Army slang for new uninitiated recruits and by Army mechanics to refer to new unproven vehicles. It wasn’t until 1945 that the first Jeep-branded product launched.

Signs ordered by Commander Wright were placed at the gates to Barksdale, reminding motorists that “a lift is a boost.” Not only would a ride help soldiers get to work or home for supper on time, it would also literally keep them from sweating out the wait in long lines for the bus during the sweltering Louisiana heat. The Barksdale’s Bark on October 30 of 1943 said, “Nothing short of 100 percent participation will give soldiers the break they deserve.”

A “Letter to the Editor” of the Barksdale’s Bark in September of 1943 was not so sanguine. Starting with humor then moving into shaming, a “Brooklyn Jeep,” a fictional GI from Brooklyn, NY, wrote a complaint letter to the editor with exaggerated Brooklyn “speech”. Referring to civilian drivers or “Civies,” he stated, “dose guys and gals could be the real heroes of dis war if dey’d only loosen up and share a little space in their golden chariots…” then moves on to a bit of shaming. “You see, Ed [Editor], if the Southern hospitality was what it’s cracked up to be, a lot of us jeeps could go as far as the gate, be picked up by the Civies, and consequently there would be more room on the busses [sic] for the udder guys.”

The “Brooklyn Jeep” really brought home his point by stating the indisputable tragedy of wartime. “Some of us guys won’t come back once we hit the udder side. The least the Civies can do is to exchange a ride in their chariots for a life that might be lost so that they and their chariots can be safe in the future.” As the Barksdale Bark had stated at the very beginning of the Jeep-O program, “It’s an honor to be a ‘Jeep-O!’”

If you have any information, stories, or photos about the Jeep-O program at Barksdale or other local efforts to help out servicemembers during WWII, we would love to see them or to copy them, with permission, to add to the History Center’s research collection. Please note, the History Center remains closed while our new exhibits are completed, but watch our Facebook page or library website homepage for updates at www.bossierlibrary.org. You can also visit the website to use our online resources. From the homepage, choose Research from the options along the top, and then choose History and Genealogy. You may call us at (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: 

• An example of a “Jeeper” decal to designate a motorist in a “Jeeper” or “Jeep-O” club who will give a ride to soldiers in communities around Army bases and airfields during WWII. Illustration from the Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville TN, Jul 7, 1943.
• Clarissa Warren, first civilian to officially join the “Barksdale Jeep-O” club and is presented with a Jeeper badge by Col. William B. Wright Jr. - The Barksdale Bark 04 Sep 1943

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Benton Pilot Among the Missing from Korean War

Seventy-six years ago, President Harry Truman was taking a break from the stress of life in the White House by relaxing at his home in Independence, Missouri. The peace and quiet he enjoyed would not last. Word came on June 24th (June 25th in Korea) that North Korean troops were invading South Korea. Truman rushed back to Washington and committed U.S. forces as part of a United Nations effort to defend the South. The Korean War had begun. Approximately 36,500 U.S. service members would lose their lives in the brutal conflict. One member from Benton is still among the missing.

Captain David H. Grisham was a pilot and meteorologist. The 1938 Benton High School graduate first served his country in World War II, flying some 30 combat missions. According to the American Air Museum in Britain, it was during one such flight, with Grisham as co-pilot, that his plane – a B-24 Liberator – was repeatedly attacked by enemy aircraft while returning from a mission over Frankfurt, Germany. The plane lost all four of its superchargers, thus slowing its speed. Protective cloud cover was scarce. Taking evasive action, the Liberator descended to 75 feet. Enemy fighters fell back. Although damaged, the B-24 was able to reach a Royal Air Force station near Kent in England and make a wheels-up landing. This would not be Grisham’s last encounter with danger.

In Korea, weather played a key role in the planning and execution of combat operations, but forecasting the weather could be difficult. Grisham was up to the challenge. As part of the U.S. Air Force’s 20th Weather Squadron, he served as staff weather officer for the 18th Fighter Bomber Group and often flew reconnaissance missions, gathering data vital to troop movements. It was on his 46th recon flight that something went wrong. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency details what happened. Grisham, as number two pilot in a flight of two, departed Ashiya Air Base in Japan in the early morning hours of September 3, 1950, flying a single-seat F-51 Mustang. Grisham and the lead pilot agreed to rendezvous over Pusan, Korea if they became separated. Shortly after takeoff, they had to climb through heavy overcast. The lead pilot exited the clouds, but did not see Grisham’s plane. He tried reaching Grisham by radio with no success. Grisham never arrived at the rendezvous point. Efforts by the Emergency Rescue Squadron failed to find any trace of him. Grisham was missing in action, one-month shy of his 30th birthday.

His family learned of his fate from a telegram sent by the war department. Though the weather had been bad, the operations officer at the time of the flight states in a letter published in The Bossier Banner newspaper in November 1950, “We were ordered to proceed because the ground forces were in dire need of close support.”

Grisham was presumed dead on December 31, 1953, five months after the war ended with the signing of an armistice. His remains were never recovered. His name is inscribed, along with the names of all those who lost their lives fighting to defend South Korea, on the Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He is also listed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii and is memorialized with a plaque at Hill Crest Cemetery in Haughton.

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. Call us to learn more. We are currently closed for renovations, but can still be reached by phone at (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: 

• Captain David H. Grisham, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
• Grisham's B-24 Liberator, B-24 Best Web
• Memorial plaque at Hill Crest Cemetery in Haughton, photo by Sandra Clarkston

Article by: Kevin Flowers

The Barksdale Literacy School in WWII

 In the summer of 1944, Allied forces were fighting some of their fiercest or most daring battles, while also reaping some of their most auspicious victories. On June 5, Allied troops entered Rome in the afternoon, and it became the first capital of the Axis Powers to fall. Meanwhile in Normandy, the following day, June 6, was D-Day, the amphibious landing of troops in northern France, opening the Western Front. In July, the Allies pushed inland. In the sweltering summer days of August-September 1944, Allied infantry troops won the bloody battle for the port of Brest in Brittany, and in another amphibious landing in France, the major ports of Marseille and Toulon were reclaimed, easing the Allies’ supply crisis. Meanwhile in the Pacific Theater, Saipan fell in June after a fearsome banzai charge; a decisive clash of carriers in the Philippine Sea crippled Japanese air power, and by August, Guam was recaptured.

In the summer of 1944 at Barksdale Army Air Field, as Barksdale was known prior to the creation of the United States Air Force on September 18, 1947, 35 or more enlisted men were fighting a brave battle of their own, proving they had the basic readiness to be soldiers by attending what the air field newspaper called “elementary school for soldiers who can neither read nor write.” At that time, one of Barksdale’s missions was as to serve as one of the Army Air Corps “replacement training centers”. These centers provided training for newly-enlisted Air Corps soldiers that was not yet specialized for a specific assignment.

Earlier in 1944, President Roosevelt had declared the US Army and Navy were faced with a “grave manpower shortage,” desperately in need of more able-bodied combat replacements. To help meet that shortage, Roosevelt asked the selective service (“the draft”) to revisit service deferments, whether for occupational, dependency, age, or physical or mental fitness requirements. For the same purpose, Chairman Andrew J. May of the U.S. House Military Affairs Committee argued that among other reclassifications, the army “should quit rejecting men because of illiteracy. Men who are illiterate can still be sharpshooters.”

In January of that year, Major Isaac N. Carr, preinduction officer of the Army’s 4th Service Command headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, announced in a speech to junior college officials, that was covered by the Associated Press, that the United States had 341,000 physically fit men of service age who were functionally illiterate, meaning, at that time, that their reading and writing skills were at a fourth-grade level or below. Carr illustrated this number by saying that was enough physically-able men to make up more than 20 Army divisions.

If the number 341,000 for men whose only barrier to service at that moment was that they read at a fourth-grade (or below) level sounds inordinately high, keep in mind that, although all states had a compulsory education law on the books by 1918, those laws were not consistently enforced across the country until well into the 1930s. That time frame would cover the school years of WWII enlistees. In addition, quality schools and trained teachers were still not available to many African American students in the south during the school years of those enlistees. For example, a high school for African American students in Bossier City did not open until the beginning of the 1940s.

To rectify this deficiency, Army training units were called upon to provide literacy instruction. The Saturday July 1, 1944, issue of the Barksdale’s Bark newspaper announced that “an elementary school for soldiers who can neither read nor write will be started by Base S-3 [the operations and training office] shortly.” The article shared that 35 enlisted men had been assigned by their commanding officers to the school already, and that classes would be held 3 times a day, five days a week. Students were required to attend one of the daily sessions in the school room in the commissary building.

More details about a literacy class were announced in the Bark on Saturday, July 29, 1944. This time it said the classes would be offered in the “Kindergarten building.” This was likely the base’s brand-new preschool for children through the age of 5. The article further stated that “Commanding officers of all units are cooperating with Base S-3 in getting men to attend the classes,” and that “the latest pamphlets from the Armed Institute have been procured for instructional purposes.”

This pamphlet referred to for the literacy classes at Barksdale likely referred to Technical Manual No. 21-500, also known as the “Private Pete” books. These reading primers followed along with solider Private Pete and all that he’d likely encounter in his day-to-day life in the Army. (The Navy had their own booklets, featuring “Sailor Sam.”) These stories adhered to the same basic format and learn-to-read formula as the ubiquitous Dick and Jane readers that young children in school at the time were using. The article also named the teacher of the literacy classes, Mrs. Mary E. Laurent, wife of Lt. Harry Laurent, Jr. assistant S-1 (personnel) officer at Barksdale. Mrs. Laurent, who “offered her services as teacher of the classes,” was introduced to Bark readers as a graduate of Muskingum College in Ohio, and an experienced teacher of English. Both Laurents were from Ohio and had attended Muskingum.

Being singled out by one’s commanding officer to attend classes in a preschool building, with text books modeled after children’s readers, Dick and Jane, could sound like excruciating punishment. Many WWII veterans’ own stories of being able to “go back in time” and learn to read and write, suggest appreciation for the opportunity, however. As for the Laurents, they were married 69 years and lived around the world while Mr. Laurent was an industrial psychologist, and retired in Hendersonville, North Carolina. They continued to value access to education, by establishing a scholarship for students in Henderson County, and endowing a department chair in Psychology at their Alma Mater, Muskingum College, now University.

The Bossier Parish Libraries History Center in the Bossier Central Library complex remains closed while our new exhibits are installed. However, we are continuing to share history in a variety of ways. You can explore many of our collections on our website, www.bossierlibrary.org. Look for the History and Genealogy page under Resources. Feel free to contact History Center staff by phone or email for assistance. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org.

Our next meeting of World War II’s Day, a monthly coffee and discussion program on a variety of WWII-related topics, will be Tuesday, August 11th at 10:30 AM in the Bossier Central Library Complex’s large meeting room. Because August 6, 2026, is the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, Dr. Cran Lucas, Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences at LSU Shreveport, will present "Hiroshima and the Aftermath". We hope you can make it, and stay tuned for the re-opening date of the History Center and its new exhibits!

Images: 

• Sample page (32) from U.S. War Department Technical Manual 21-500 “Army Reader” May 14, 1943, a.k.a. “Private Pete.” https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=stu_1210th_fort_ontario
• Mary Evelyn Cather Laurent, from Muskingum Update, Spring 2009

Article by: Pam Carlisle