Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • Sugar Brothers Theater

    This building would eventually become the Paramount!

  • Hotel de Flournoy

    This one stumps me. I find no references in the newspapers to “Hotel de Flournoy”. Is this just the farm of the Flournoy family? Who knows!

  • West Monroe State Bank

    I think this building stood right next to what is now the Hamilton House Bed and Breakfast on Trenton Street, West Monroe. That is from a 1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance…

  • The Grandstand at Forsythe Park

    I shared a color postcard of this just a few weeks ago. This is another angle, taken from the baseball field looking over the racetrack and into the stands. Look…

  • The Lyceum Theater

    This movie theater was opened in 1909 in the 100 block of DeSiard Street and was torn down around 1928. The building was only a couple of years old when…

  • The Interior of the Steamboat Bob Blanks

    My jaw dropped when I saw this photo! I have never seen an interior shot of the Bob Blanks. The Blanks was one of the most important steamboats on the…

  • Monroe Sanitarium

    No, this is not St. Francis Hospital! I think this is Riverside Sanitarium, which was on South Grand street. St. Francis was a few years away when the above photo…

  • Fannie May Trousdale

    This lady was a real go getter in her time! She was a writer of books, magazines and newspaper articles at a time when few women did such things! She…

  • E.C. Drew Home, circa 1910

    Last month, a patron brought in a magazine published in 1911, showing photos of Monroe I have never seen before. The patron let us digitize it and I took photos…

  • Forsythe Park Racetrack – circa 1907

    My latest purchase is a colorized postcard of the Forsythe Park racetrack and grandstand. The postcard was dated January 21, 1908. The racetrack encircled a ballpark where some of the…