Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • Monroe Roads and Ditches Maintained in 1825.

    I found the above article in an 1825 Washita Gazette. It basically ordered Monroe citizens owning town lots to maintain the roads and ditches around their lots. Kinda wish they…

  • Horse Racing in Monroe

    This ad for a local horse race meet, appeared in the Ouachitta Banner in October, 1839. It is not known where this race course was, but the stakes were pretty…

  • List of Letters in 1825

    Back in the early days of many cities, no one really had individual mailboxes for postal delivery. Your mail was sent to the local post office and it was up…

  • The Laura Porter Lynching

    I was told about this website called Strange Fruit and Spanish Moss. They have documented lynching incidents from around the country. One of the ones that was documented was the…

  • The Ouachita Belle

    Tulane has a very impressive steamboat collection. Among the collection is this beauty: https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:75015 I think they have the date wrong though. The Ouachita Belle was built in Louisville, KY…

  • 1927 Flood Picture

    https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-pho%3A353 The photo in the link above, shows the back of the buildings on the 100 block of South Grand during the 1927 flood. You can see the Trousdale and…

  • A 1910 Booklet Showing off What Monroe Had to Offer

    I like this one! It is part of the Louisiana Digital Library and was scanned from our collection. It shows various Monroe buildings, residences and scenery, circa 1910. The first…

  • The P.M. Atkins Bridge

    Did you know that the Lea Joyner bridge was actually originally named for someone else? In 1931, Monroe and West Monroe decided they needed a new bridge across the Ouachita…

  • What was the lowest ever recorded temperature in Monroe?

    Last week’s ice storm got me curious as to what is the lowest recorded temperature in Monroe. Since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1911, the lowest recorded…

  • A History of Mardi Gras in Monroe

    The week previous to last week’s ice storm, I was asked by Vantage Health to be filmed giving a lecture on the history of Mardi Gras in Monroe. It premiered…