Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • Louisville Avenue, 1926

    Louisville Avenue doesn’t look like this anymore! These houses were all demolished or moved when Louisville became a business district around the 1940’s.

  • Baer Brothers Store, circa 1890

    This newspaper clipping shows the Baer building, on South Grand Street around the turn of the century. the site is now the location of a parking garage.

  • Houseboats Along the Ouachita River Levee

    This is an interesting little postcard I found that I have never seen before! It shows some children riding in a ski boat along the Ouachita River with skiers in…

  • Central Savings Bank & Trust Co. Building

    This building was built in 1923 at the corner of DeSiard and Jackson Streets in 1923.

  • Unalaska: the Sled Dog Buried in Monroe

    This article was written by me for the July, 2007 issue of Louisiana Road Trips magazine. It was later republished in the September, 2016 edition of Southern Calls: A Funeral Director’s Perspective.…

  • The Ouachita/Key House: Monroe’s Confederate Hospital?

    The Ouachita Hotel, was located where the park is now at the corner of 3rd and DeSiard. It was built in 1861 by Sloan and Mason. In 1890, F.G. Key…

  • The Sad Death of Neecy Hardin, Alias Ethel Hunt.

    I wrote this article in 20015 for Louisiana Road Trips Magazine. I still don’t know anything about her. This article haunts me for some reason.  Suicide is nothing new.  It…

  • The First Telephone in Ouachita Parish

    I wrote this for Louisiana Road Trips Magazine back in 2013: In late spring of 1878, Monroe experimented with a new invention called the telephone.  The April 26th edition of…

  • The Naming of St. Frederick

    Did you know that St. Frederick High School was named for a college kid? Back in 1935, young Rae Frederick Rinehart, Jr. was attending Northeast Center Louisiana State University (later…

  • U.S. Post Office in Monroe.

    I don’t think I have ever shared a photo of the old post office. Some old time residents remember getting their vaccines here in later years. What a beautiful building!…