Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • Mac Ward, Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer

    This picture was found in the collection of Mac Ward, housed in the Special Collections Department. Mac was a beloved fixture of KNOE News for many years. https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-pho%3A746 The man…

  • The Monroe Country Club, Circa 1913

    Australia comes through again! This time, with two exterior shots of the Monroe Country Club. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-150289157/view https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-150289352/view I have posted in the past links to some interior shots of this…

  • The Negro Motorist Green-Book – 1940

    Lets say you were an African-American living in the United States decades before the Civil Rights movement. You wanted to take your family on vacation out of state, but didn’t…

  • African-American Woman Fishing In Monroe

    Some photos leave you wanting more. This one does for me. It is a photo taken in Monroe circa 1930 of a woman sitting on the bank of a bayou/river…

  • Queen Janus I

    Last month, I went to visit the Biedenharn Museum and Garden, and for the Mardi Gras season, they had some past Krewe of Janus royal costumes on display. I think…

  • A Proposed New Building For the Monroe Academy

    Wouldn’t this have been a gorgeous building? This was published in the Monroe News Star back in 1913. Professor Foster and the trustees of the Monroe Academy were looking to…

  • Students in Other Parish schools

    Last week, I told you about the Monroe Academy, a Leland University affiliate private school for African-American students at the turn of the last century. Leland had affiliate schools all…

  • Students and Faculty of the North Louisiana Industrial Institute

    The bulletin for Leland University I found these lists of students in, can be seen on the Internet Archives here : https://archive.org/details/bulletin189798191011lela/page/n121/mode/2up?q=%22Monroe%2C+LA%22 . I also found them digitized on the…

  • Monroe’s Ties to a Lost Black University

    I am just recently hearing about a private school for African-Americans that was here in the 1890’s and the early 1900’s. To call out my own biases, I thought that…

  • Lincoln School

    This picture is amazing! https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-bsc%3A44 It shows the faculty and staff of Lincoln School, which was an African American school during segregation. In 1962 or so, the Elm Street Elementary…