Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • African-American Schools in Ouachita Parish Before 1970.

    City and Parish schools were not integrated until 1971. Before then, the races were educated separately. Schools such as Wisner, Myles, Terzia, Boley, Monroe Colored High, etc. were all created…

  • Monroe History

    This last WPA document I want to share concerns the history of Monroe. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-wpa%3A10 This is the last of the Monroe related WPA papers up at the moment, but if…

  • Tuberculosis Sanitarium

    A couple of weeks ago, I shared a link to a photo of G.B. Cooley Sanitarium under construction. The WPA compiled a history of facility and you can read it…

  • Northeast Center of Louisiana State University (ULM)

    This next WPA document is about the brand new (at the time) college in Monroe. https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-wpa%3A11

  • History of Selman Field

    This is a great WPA paper from our collection that details the history of Selman Field. It later became the Monroe Regional Airport. https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-wpa%3A15

  • Parks of Monroe

    This is a great paper by the WPA. It recounts the history of Forsythe, Bernstein and Stoval (aka Casino) parks. Casino park, of course, is where the legendary Monroe Monarchs…

  • Monroe and the Hadacol Good-Will Tour

    Probably one of the best known snake oil salesmen was Senator Dudley LeBlanc and his Hadacol “medicine”. As part of his publicity, he hired some of the biggest stars to…

  • Industrial Ouachita

    This next one, I’ll let my boss’ description of it speak: “Draft notes of a tour of industrial plants in Ouachita Parish including Southern Carbon, Columbian Carbon, Monroe Packing, Union…

  • Ouachita and Monroe History

    I like this WPA document! I can’t vouch for the veracity of some of the information the WPA collected, but most of it is correct. It is a fairly large…

  • Louisiana Training Institute (LTI)

    Here is a nice little history of LTI: https://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/oplib-wpa%3A8