Community Exchange Established in Benton

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933
United States Library of Congress's
Prints and Photographs division
digital ID cph.3c17121

The consumer economy ground to a halt, and an ordinary recession became the Great Depression, the defining event of the 1930s. It was the worst economic disaster in American history. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, he established many economic relief programs to help restore the banking system, create jobs, provide affordable housing, and various other forms of relief.

The Federal Emergency Relief Agency or FERA, often called ERA, aimed to alleviate household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state governments. FERA provided work for over 20 million people and developed facilities on public lands across the country. Community commodity exchange sites were a result of the agency's work.

The purposes of the community exchanges were explained in a letter by H. M. Gallagher, Louisiana state ERA engineer, “The purpose is to obtain some large ramshackle building, convenient to a railroad spur which may be used to include a canning center, warehouse, store room, shoe shop and other facilities. It stated that other quarters might be desired for live-stock pens and a furniture shop.”

“The plan of operations is to exchange canned goods and articles made at the center for live stock and country produce. It is desired that the police jury and the city share the expense of providing quarters for such a center.”

The following article from the Bossier Banner, Jan. 10, 1935, details the plans for a Bossier Parish community commodity exchange:

“Bossier Parish may be the first in the state to boast of a community exchange, where clients of the ERA may come to exchange whatever surplus they have for products they need. This appointment was made before a meeting of the Police Jury yesterday afternoon, by a representative of the ERA.

“It is understood, from the President’s recent message to Congress, and from other sources, that the ERA shortly plans to swing from a relief organization to one that will more or less pay its way. Those who receive help, in the form of money, seeds or other goods, will be allowed to pay for them in produce, livestock, wood or whatever they may have in the form of surplus.

“The Bossier community exchange will be located in Benton, the site being adjacent to the present Ward Two Highway barn. Most of the land is owned by the Police Jury and the Town of Benton. The remaining land to be used will be leased, free of charge, from local citizens.

“It is understood that the buildings will eventually form a compound, that is, they will be built in a square. The first unit is to be a warehouse, wherein goods may be stored, after being exchanged. A community workshop, where furniture or other articles can be made, a community canning kitchen and possibly other buildings, will, in the long run, be included in the project.

“The Police Jury and Town of Benton are to assit [sic] in the plan by providing the materials to be used in the building. The Police Jury is being held this evening, to work out the details, of what each group will do. The ERA will provide half the materials and all the labor.

Arthur Milton Wallace
Mayor of Benton for 12 years
Margaret W. Jones Collection
 2019.057.056 

“Work on the building is expected to get under way within a very short time. Additional details of the plan will be furnished the Banner’s readers in forthcoming issues.”

Plans for the exchange called for the donation of the use of the necessary land, for a period of five years, by the town. The exchange was built jointly by the Town, Parish, and the ERA, with the latter furnishing half of the materials and all of the labor. A.M. Wallace was mayor of the Village of Benton during that time. The exchange was partially located on lot one of block 39 of the Village for which he secured the lease from the Police Jury for the duration of the program.

By: Amy Robertson