Ouachita Parish History Tidbits

Author: Lora Diane Peppers

  • The First Gulf War

    I just wanted to share my perspective as a teenage college student at NLU when the First Gulf War broke out. Watching the coverage this past weekend of the strike…

  • Judge Alwine Ragland

    I found this wonderful article about the late Judge Alwine Mulhearn Ragland! She was one of Northeast Louisiana’s first women judges and was a member of the Mulhearn Funeral Home…

  • A West Monroe Stewardess Survives a Brutal Plane Crash

    One of my Antique Alley purchases was a Monroe Magazine published in March, 1966. The following page piqued my curiosity. Twenty six year old Toni Faye Ketchell, a graduate of…

  • Portrait of Mayor Jack Howard

    This portrait was painted around 1965 by the noted European artist Verdi. It was unveiled at a Monroe Chamber of Commerce meeting in March, 1966 and hangs in City Hall.

  • 1982 Critters’ Creek Commercial

    Boy, this one brought back memories!

  • St. Paschal’s School – 1945

    These final photos show the Catholic school which was a part of the church. I believe this school was the first Catholic school in West Monroe.

  • St. Paschal’s Catholic Church, West Monroe

    At one of my favorite antique shops in West Monroe last week, I found a little pamphlet from 1945 detailing the history of West Monroe’s first Catholic church, St. Paschal’s.…

  • DeSiard (and 3rd?) Circa 1908

    One of my newest eBay finds is this postcard, which was cancelled in 1908. From looking at the 1909 Sanborn fire maps, I have it tentatively identified as being taken…

  • The Murder of General Ferdinand Morgan from Charles Morhouse’s Perspective

    In the previous blog post, I told you about finding the Edward Livingston Papers in the Special Collections of the Princeton University Library. Several letters have caught my attention, including…

  • The Crime and Execution? of John Loslo/Leslie

    Years ago, I compiled a list of all legal executions that happened in Ouachita Parish. Earlier this month, I was going through the online papers of Edward Livingston in the…