Shreveport, Louisiana history

In 1838, Caddo Parish was created from the large Natchitoches Parish (pronounced "NACK-a-dish") and Shreve Town was designated as the parish seat.

Shreveport was named the seat of Parish government on October 6, 1840.

By 1860, Shreveport had a free population of 2,200 and 1,300 slaves within the city limits.

Isolated from events in the east, the civil war continued in the Trans-Mississippi theater for several months after Robert E. Lee's surrender in April 1865, and Shreveport briefly became the Confederate capital.

The house, which was built in 1896, was owned by Shreveport grocer William Buckner Ogilvie.

The site was incorporated in 1907 and named Bossier City.

A view of the 600 block of Texas Street in 1916, looking east.

The building started as a dry goods shop but became downtown’s premier dress and millinery shop in the 1920s.

It’s interesting to remember that when the Feibleman’s (Sears) store was built in 1923, Civil War veterans were still alive.

It opened in 1925 and was the first store in town to offer its own credit card.

The Winters Department Store as it was in 1930 at 613-615 Texas, next to what is now the Robinson Film Center.

The town became the home of Barksdale Air Force Base in 1933 and since that time has been one of the fastest growing cities in the state.

In 1940 it become the first building downtown to get central air-conditioning.

In 1951, the building was officially renamed the Johnson Building.

Elvis Presley’s final Hayride performance took place on December 15, 1956.

Mayor Clyde Fant in the Holiday in Dixie Parade, 1962.

The Shreveport/Bossier area suffered through a prolonged, and deep, recessionary period from 1985-89.

Casinos to the rescue: In 1994, Shreveport-Bossier’s employment began to rise by an average of 4,600 jobs a year due to riverboat casinos.

When he finished his portion of the show, "the audience went totally berserk and started running wildly through the building," recalled Logan in his 1998 memoir, Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride.

Durable goods dependence & national recessions: The years 2001-03 were particularly difficult ones for this MSA. The MSA lost 4,300 jobs over this three-year period.

Finally, a mixture of other firms, including Frymasters, Beaird, and Exide Technologies imposed significant layoffs in 2002.

GM, Beaird, and Frymaster stop the fall: The Shreveport/Bossier MSA turned the corner in 2004 and grew for five years in a row, expanding at a very healthy rate of almost 2% a year over 2004-08.

In 2006, funded by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, workers removed the asbestos.

The new firm Steelscape (now Ternium) oopened at the Port of Caddo-Bossier, creating 240 new jobs in 2007.

By September 2009, 275 of the 900 jobs attached to the AFGSC had relocated to Barksdale.

Recovering From the Great Recession: The Shreveport-Bossier MSA actually started enjoying job gains in 2010.

The region also had a good year in 2011, adding 2,100 jobs, a very respectable growth rate of 1.2%.