Looking at Earth (Day) with a View from the Moon:

Earth Day, a celebration of clean air, land, and water, is coming up on April 22nd. Earth Day began in 1970 as part of a newly-developing environmental movement. But did you know, the environmental movement really took off, so to speak, far away from the Earth, with the Apollo space missions?

The Apollo missions, which began in 1961 and concluded in 1972, brought back to us Earth-dwellers inspiring photographic images that set our startlingly blue orb of a planet in stark contrast to the blackness of space. The first photo of the Earth taken from space by a human (as opposed to images from unmanned observation flights or satellites) became known as the “Earthrise” photo of the Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon on Christmas Eve, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. The most famous of the Apollo Earth photos became known as the “Blue Marble,” a portrait of the Earth taken on Dec. 7, 1972, during Apollo 17. Over 50 years later, the Artemis II mission has been recreating many of these same photographs, with technological upgrades, such as the “Hello, World” photo of April 3, 2026, that catches the Earth in the same “pose” as the Blue Marble.

Perhaps the most famous of the Apollo missions was Apollo 11, which launched July, 1969. Its lunar landing module put humans, astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, on the moon for the very first time. In 1989, the Shreveport Times did a 20-year retrospective story on locals’ memories of that day, and their own special connections to the event. At least half of the group were Bossierites, including John and Maybelle Manry of Plain Dealing. Mr. Manry’s memories and reactions were fascinating, because as a native of the year 1903, his memories predated the arrival of automobiles in his hometown. And Maybelle Manry pointed out how exciting the Apollo missions were to her, because their son Charles Manry, was a crucial part of the mission.

John Ardis Manry was a printer, regional historian, photographer, and genealogist who for a while was publisher of the Bossier Banner newspaper and worked for the Shreveport Times. He was born two weeks before brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright took their famous flight in December, 1903. He remembers the “pop-pop-pop” sounds of the first Model T Ford automobiles in town keeping neighbors awake in Plain Dealing. He watched the first hot air balloon liftoff from Bossier Parish soil in 1915 and thought that the pilot “had gone to heaven right there.” The moonwalk of Apollo 11, though, “was the greatest thing that ever happened in my 85 years,” he said. Mr. Manry remembered, “We saw every bit of it we could and we read everything we could.” He reminisced that before that, the most fantastic thing they’d personally seen was the sending of the first newspaper wire photo in 1935, “a marvel.”

At one point in Mr. Manry’s remisncenses of Apollo 11 for the Times reporter, his wife Mrs. Maybelle Manry interjected that really the missions were so interesting to them and that they didn’t miss a minute of coverage of it was likely due to the fact that they “had a child involved in it.” The Manrys’ son Charles E. Manry, a 1954 graduate of Plain Dealing High School, majored in physics at Georgia Tech. Following college, he entered the US Navy working as a “radio man” and as an electronics instructor and then worked in the Naval Ordnance Design station in California, developing the technology to photograph the ocean floor. In 1963 he went from exploring the ocean floor to exploration of space, by moving to Houston and taking a job with NASA.

At NASA, Manry designed the guidance system that was used on the Apollo spacecraft and personally trained each astronaut in how to use it. He became an expert in manned space flight and in 1971, in the thick of the Cold War, was selected as member of a team of physicists sent to Moscow to work out a joint rendezvous and docking system. These systems were to allow US and Russian spacecraft to link up in space, and give each country the ability to rescue the other’s astronauts or cosmonauts in space. As a part of NASA’s Manned Space Center, Guidance and Control Section in Houston, Charles Manry had worked in the Gemini manned space program, and he also helped create the NASA computer programs to map the Space Shuttle's routes. He then worked for the Martin Marietta company in Denver and passed away in Colorado in 2011.

If you have stories or photographs of some of the area’s space or environmentally-minded citizens, we’d love to see or hear them, and perhaps make copies for our collection, with your permission. The Bossier Parish Libraries History Center located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA and are open M-F 9-6. 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: 

• NASA’s Apollo 8 Earthrise photo
• John and Maybelle Manry on their 50th anniversary, BPLHC photo
• Charles Manry as a boy, BPLHC photo

Article by Pam Carlisle 

Disappearance of Flight Carrying Barksdale General Still A Mystery

Throughout history there have been many intriguing and mysterious disappearances that remain unsolved such as Amelia Earhart, the crew of the Mary Celeste, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and big band leader Glenn Miller. One such disappearance has ties to Barksdale Air Force Base, and, although not as well-known as these more famous cases, it nonetheless is still mystifying 75 years after it happened.

In early 1951, the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) established the 7th Air Division and assigned it to England to help counter the growing threat from the Soviet Union. SAC bombers stationed there could serve as a deterrent to Soviet hostilities. Barksdale’s Vice Commander Brigadier General Paul Cullen was chosen to lead the division and oversee its operations.

Born in 1901 in Peru, Cullen later moved to California and joined the military at a time when aviation was still developing. According to his official Air Force biography, he entered service as a flying cadet in June, 1928. Only a year earlier, Charles Lindbergh had become the first person to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. Advancing through the ranks, Cullen commanded the Air Force Photo Unit during Operation Crossroads, the atom bomb tests conducted just after World War II, and served as commander of the 311th Reconnaissance Wing at SAC headquarters in Maryland in the late 1940s. Newspaper accounts state that he was considered the foremost expert at the time on strategic reconnaissance, which involved using high-altitude photography to collect intelligence on enemy targets. It was while serving as vice-commander that Cullen boarded the flight which would carry him and 52 others into the unknown.

The Douglas C-124 Globemaster II, a heavy-lift cargo aircraft, departed Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico on Wednesday, March 21, 1951 and landed at Barksdale late that afternoon where Brig. Gen. Cullen and his staff joined other passengers already aboard, which included four high-ranking SAC officers, as well as specialists in various air defense operations. Built to haul troops and equipment such as tanks, guns and trucks, Globemasters had a reputation for giving bumpy rides. According to a story in the aviation periodical Flying Magazine, the Globemaster was an aircraft which “tended to shake a lot, even in calm skies, earning it the nickname ‘Old Shaky.’”

It was in these somewhat uncomfortable conditions that the flight left Barksdale Wednesday evening and made a refueling stop at an Air Force base in Maine before heading out Thursday, March 22 over the vast North Atlantic Ocean. England was its destination, where General Cullen would take charge of the 7th. Checking in with weather ships along the route that were tasked with gathering meteorological data of the upper atmosphere and ocean’s surface, the flight’s radio operator reported the plane’s position Thursday evening as being approximately 800 miles southwest of the coast of Ireland.

By Friday morning, March 23, it became evident that the flight had encountered trouble. According to an article in The Shreveport Journal from that afternoon, no further communications had been received from the plane, so a search of the aircraft’s last known position was initiated by both U.S. and British forces. Nothing was found. There was a brief glimmer of hope Saturday morning, when a B-29 pilot sighted possible life rafts and other items approximately 450 miles west of the Irish coast, but a search of that area also found nothing. The leader of the search effort is quoted in The Shreveport Journal of

March 24 as saying attempts to find the plane would continue “as long as we have any hope of finding survivors.” Those attempts, which The Shreveport Times of Tuesday, March 27 says covered 25,000 square miles of ocean and constituted one of the largest rescue operations in history, spanned a week and were halted on March 30 before being restarted four days later. Ultimately, only small pieces of charred debris and a small briefcase were discovered. No trace of the crew or passengers was ever found.

The incident was consigned to the pages of history until it was revived in two articles in The Shreveport Times, the first in 2011 and a follow-up in 2015. Both articles were written by former Times staff member John Andrew Prime, and in them he mentions obtaining an accident report about the flight from the Air Force which offers interesting details such as a weather ship picking up a radio report of a fire on board the aircraft and the plane being intact when it struck the water. The report also states that the Globemaster carried equipment such as life rafts, life vests and emergency radios.

Despite the passage of time, answers to the mystery of what happened to Cullen and the others haven’t been forthcoming. Was the flight sabotaged? Could rough seas have swamped the plane after it came down, sending it to the bottom of the Atlantic? Did the Russians, as some have speculated, snatch the men? The website for the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives states that “… it was revealed that Soviet submarines and surface vessels were active in the area.” The website also notes, “Due to their expertise in nuclear and other defense matters, Cullen and the other men on the airplane would have been an intelligence windfall to the Soviets.”

Perhaps one day, we’ll know their fate. Perhaps a long-secret document will come to light that will provide some sense of closure for the men’s families. For now, the incident remains, like so many stories of the past, unexplained.

If you have any information relating to the history of Bossier City and Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the material to its research collection. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open Monday - Friday 9-6, and Saturday by appointment. 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:

• Brigadier General Paul Cullen/courtesy United States Air Force 
• C-124 Globemaster II/courtesy United States Air Force
• The Shreveport Journal headline/March 23, 1951

Article by: Kevin Flowers

A Gold Star Spouse of World War II

This is a story to commemorate Gold Star Spouses Day, April 5th, and the sacrifices made by a young couple in World War II, Haughton’s Cassius Clay “Buddy” Brandenburg Jr. and his young widow Cora Ann Foote Brandenburg. Gold Star Spouses Day is officially recognized by Congress, according to the US Army’s Office of Enterprise Management (OEM), as a time “to remember the profound impact that the loss of a loved one in military service can have on families. It serves as an opportunity for communities to come together in support of these spouses and to hold sacred the memory of their fallen heroes.”

Buddy Brandenburg graduated from Haughton High School in 1932. He entered Louisiana State Normal College in Natchitoches, La (now Northwestern State) and after graduating in 1936, he took a teaching position at Bossier High School. He taught for one year, then took a variety of jobs, including as a field representative with the Universal Credit Company of Shreveport and at General Motors Acceptance Corporation in Alexandria, Louisiana before volunteering for the Army Air Corps December 27, 1941 at Barksdale Field. (A separate branch of service for air power, the US Air Force, was not established until 1947.)

                 

Buddy trained as a bombardier and married a young librarian, Cora Ann Foote, in Walla Walla Washington in August of 1942. Walla Walla was a training airfield for heavy bombers. Cora Ann, originally of Baton Rouge and a graduate of Louisiana State University, had been a librarian trainee at the Benton location of the Bossier Parish libraries. Buddy left for overseas duty on January 1, 1943. Cora Ann worked as a librarian for the US Army’s Camp Claiborne in central Louisiana.

Barely two months after leaving for overseas, Buddy’s plane lost altitude at a point near Utrecht, Holland while returning from a mission over Germany, for which he served as lead bombardier. He wasn’t declared “Presumed Dead” by the War Department for another year, after “all possible efforts” had failed to find the twenty-eight-year-old.

Buddy Brandenburg’s remains have never been recovered, even though some successful attempts to locate remains of WWII soldiers were done through the 1970’s. His name was carved among the 1,722 names on the Wall of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Cambridge, England. Like the other American cemeteries in Europe, this one is breathtakingly beautiful, designed by the famed American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and featuring views of the English countryside that, by law, will always remain farmland.

C. C. “Buddy” Brandenburg also has a monument in the Cottage Grove Cemetery in rural north Bossier Parish, and a memorial service was held for him at the Methodist Church in Benton. Buddy’s young widow Cora Ann received a letter from a member of one of Buddy’s combat crews, giving her what details he could about the fate of Buddy’s plane. (the letter is in the History Center’s collection).

Cora Ann returned to south Louisiana briefly and was a children’s librarian in Lafayette before leaving that position in March 1947 to become a librarian at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Alexandra, La. She recruited volunteers to help her do bedside visits, bringing books directly to patients. In June of 1948, she remarried WWII veteran John E. Jungkind from Arkansas. They moved to Columbia, Missouri where she was medical librarian at the University of Missouri Medical School. By 1950 they returned to Lafayette, where John worked as a reporter. They lived and worked various places over the years, but ultimately spent their final years in Baton Rouge.

If you are interested in World War topics, please attend one of our monthly World War Tuesdays coffee and conversation programs at the History Center. They are on the second Tuesday of the month at 10:30 AM. The History Center is located in the Central Complex Library at 7204 Hutchison Street, Bossier City, LA and is open M-F 9-6. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

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

Images: 

• 2nd LT Cassius Clay "Buddy" Brandenburg Jr./History Center collection
• Cora Ann Foote Brandenburg/The Shreveport Times, August 30, 1942
• Tablets of the Missing, Cambridge American Cemetery, England. Creative Commons Photo via Wikimedia: Stevekeiretsu, CC BY-SA 3.0

Article by: Pam Carlisle

North Bossier Park – Twenty Years Strong

Late last year, in a pervious article written by Kevin Flowers, a fellow member of the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, he wrote about the Bossier Racquet and Swim club, and how the city planned on potentially buying the ailing complex. Ultimately, however, they would decide against doing so and would instead seek to build their own recreation site. This caught my eye, as around this time last year I wrote an article on Mike Woods Park. Therefore, let’s take a look at another major Bossier Parish park, the North Bossier Park, and the associated Bossier Tennis Center.

The earliest mention to the park project itself was in late 2003, according to the Bossier Parish Police Jury minutes from both September 17 and October 15, when Police Juror Eddy Shell met with members of a committee made up of representatives from the City of Bossier City, Bossier Parish School Board, and of course the Bossier Parish Police Jury. After the events of this meeting, the jury agreed to draw up an action plan for the development of the North Bossier Recreation Park Complex. Late that month, funds for the project would be approved by Bossier City, with $1 million dollars approved by the City Council, drawing an equal mix of funding from gaming revenue and the sales tax capital improvement fund. A series of meetings would follow as 2003 ended, and 2004 began, and in April of 2004 a steering committee would be formally established for the purposes of coordination between the three bodies.

By the end of the year, ground would be broken on the project, with the initial estimates for the cost of the project being around $98,000, with an approved expense of $60,000 from the BPPJ to cover the cost of the labor. Work would continue apace through the fall of 2004, with the clearing of the site and the laying of the base infrastructure for the first phase of construction. In the December 1, 2004, meeting of the BPPJ, concerns were raised about the park being built as purely a tennis complex. Statements were made to reinforce that the park should be for everyone, not just tennis players, and it is here where the first discussion on playground equipment at the new park was had by the Police Jury. The next series of meetings for the Police Jury would include discussion of the potential playground equipment, and on February 2, 2005, the Police Jury would authorize the purchase of handicap accessible playground equipment in conjunction with Bossier City funding.

The construction of the tennis courts themselves, the underlying driving force for Bossier City’s contribution to the project, would begin in the summer of 2005, continuing into 2009. Finally, come early July 2006, the day would come: the North Bossier Park Tennis Center would have its ribbon cutting. Members of each of the three contributing bodies would participate in the grand opening, and the full park would be, officially, open to the public. The initial count for the tennis courts would be a ‘mere’ twelve, which would be later expanded to add another six in the coming years. The courts were built, in part, to encourage children and the greater community to develop an appreciation for tennis in the local area. Indeed, as part of the grand opening, there was an accompanying set of tennis scrambles open to the public.

From the lengthy walking trail to the eighteen tennis courts, there is plenty for everyone to enjoy. For the past twenty years, the North Bossier Park has been a mainstay of the community, servicing the area with free and easy access to the amenities therein.

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: 

• Students at the Bossier Tennis Center – BPT (Jul 04, 2006) – Rachel Hayes
• Construction of the North Bossier Park Parking Lot – BPT (Sep 23, 2004) – Jennifer Ganey
•  Jim Pevier walking his dog at North Bossier Park – BPT (Dec 02, 2005) – Rachel Hayes

Article by: Johan Daigle

 

Bossier Parish Responds to East Texas School Disaster

Among the many headstones at Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport, there stands one with the name of a young girl who perished 89 years ago in the worst school disaster in our nation’s history. Mary Priscilla Carney was only 12 that fateful afternoon in 1937 when an explosion reduced her school in New London, Texas to rubble. Bossier Parish responded, as did many communities, and began taking steps to ensure such a tragedy wouldn’t happen here.

Revenue flowing from the East Texas oil fields brought much-needed prosperity to New London in the 1930s. Located approximately 122 miles southeast of Dallas in Rusk County, the town grew as families moved there drawn by its wealth. Little expense was spared in building a school to accommodate the influx of children. An article from March 2007 in Texas Monthly magazine states that oil revenue “contributed to top-notch facilities … that included an elementary building, a gymnasium, and even a lighted football field. But the crown jewel belonged to children in fifth through eleventh grade (“senior year” at that time): the $300,000 two-story junior and senior high school, … fully equipped with a chemistry lab, an auditorium with a balcony, and an industrial-arts workshop.”

For Mary, who was in seventh grade, and approximately 500 of her fellow students, who occupied this nice, new crown jewel the afternoon of Thursday, March 18, 1937, the bell signaling the end of the school day was likely top of mind. It was supposed to sound at 3:30. What the students and their teachers didn’t know was that it would never sound. Its ringing would never be heard again.

Natural gas had been used to heat the campus since its construction. In January 1937, the school board voted to cancel its gas contract and save money by tapping into a nearby line of lower quality gas, sometimes referred to as a residue line, that was available for free. An article of May 1, 1995, on the Texas State Historical Association website states that tapping such a line “was a frequent money-saving practice for homes, schools and churches in the oil field.” In this instance, the practice proved deadly.

Within weeks of the change, ominous warning signs made themselves known. Headaches and burning eyes began afflicting students, according to the online news site Texas Standard in an article from August 13, 2024. But apparently no one suspected the culprit was a gas leak. At the time, natural gas had no odor additive, making leak detection difficult. As Mary and her classmates waited to go home that Thursday afternoon, the unthinkable happened.

At 3:17 p.m., a teacher flipped a switch to turn on an electric sander in the industrial-arts workshop located in the basement, unaware of the volatile gas fumes that had invaded the building. A spark flew from the switch, igniting the gas. The high school building exploded. The article on the TSHA website describes the blast: “Immediately the building seemed to lift in the air and then smashed to the ground. Walls collapsed. The roof fell in and buried its victims in a mass of brick, steel, and concrete debris.” A nightmare had come to New London.

Assistance arrived swiftly, as townspeople, oil field workers and many others who heard and felt the explosion rushed to the scene. Bossier Parish also offered help. An article in the March 25, 1937 edition of The Bossier Banner newspaper details how Bossier City businessman Arthur Ray Teague and E. W. Rice, chairman of the Bossier Red Cross chapter, delivered medical supplies. It also mentions Bossier City doctors John Victor Hendrick and William Mastin Scott arriving to render aid. The Planters Press newspaper of the same date describes Bossier firefighters providing first aid and “anything else which would be of help.” Barksdale Field - as Barksdale Air Force Base was then known - sent planes with medical supplies and doctors and nurses. According to an item in the March 20, 1937 issue of the Miami Tribune of Miami, Florida, these Barksdale planes flew over the disaster site and dipped their wings as a show of condolence.

The death toll estimate was approximately 300 killed, including about 16 teachers. Five of the young victims, including Mary, were brought to funeral homes in Shreveport. An investigation into the cause of the accident “concluded that gas had escaped from a faulty connection and accumulated beneath the building,” states the 1995 article on the TSHA website. This conclusion prompted Bossier officials to begin checking gas lines here.

On April 9, 1937, The Plain Dealing Progress newspaper noted that the Bossier Parish School Board “ordered a thorough inspection of plumbing or gas fixtures in all school buildings of the parish burning natural gas.” The Bossier Banner reported in its April 1 edition that classes at Benton High School were cancelled for a day in late March while workmen tried to find gas leaks. But the newspaper asserts that this was not done because of concern about a possible explosion, but solely because of high gas bills.

Texas quickly passed legislation requiring something be added to natural gas to give it an odor, making leak detection much easier. Other cities and towns followed suit. Because of New London, the rotten egg smell signaling a gas leak became the industry standard. And lives have been saved because of it. Mary and her classmates and their teachers did not die in vain.

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 Monday-Friday 9-6, and Saturday by appointment. 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:

• Mary Priscilla Carney/courtesy Christie Marie Shepherd Findagrave.com
• Workers dig through the rubble to find victims/San Antonio Express News, March 20, 1937

Article by: Kevin Flowers