Three

ERECTING A BUILDING FOR
ACADEMIC PURPOSES

EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT

Opened in 1850 as a successor to the Minden Academy on property donated by W.A. Drake, the Minden Male Academy operated for more than 50 years before closing in 1901. The buildings were sold to the city, and the site became the present-day Academy Park. (Author’s collection.)

After the Minden Male Academy closed, Congressman John T. Watkins, whose father had been president of the school, purchased the main building from the city. The congressman moved the building about one block to this location where it lived out its life as a home and later apartment building. (Author’s collection.)

Here are the students of the Male Academy in an image taken in the 1880s. Most of the local community leaders of those years were graduates of the school. Included among them were Congressman Watkins and his brother Lynn K. Watkins, who served on the Louisiana State Court of Appeals. (Author’s collection.)

At the same time the Minden Male Academy opened, a new college for women was created in Minden in cooperation with the Presbyterian Church. The Minden Female College would offer a high-quality education in the arts and sciences to students from all across the Mid-South for more than four decades. The school managed to survive the trauma of the Civil War and remained a successful enterprise until the economic downturn of the mid-1890s. The college buildings were used for most important civic meetings and some statewide events. After the college closed, the facilities were used as the home of Minden’s new public school when it was opened in 1900. The old college served that purpose for a decade until most of the buildings were destroyed in 1910 after the new high school was completed. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

These Minden Female College students were photographed at the same time as the earlier image of the Minden Male Academy students. The two schools were not affiliated in any way, and the campuses were about a half mile apart, so it seems likely a visiting photographer stopped at both schools while in town and posed the respective students bodies at a location of his choice. The presence of two schools has often led to confusion in Minden, as the original site of the Minden Academy became the Female College and, even today, that property is the location of Minden High School. The Minden Male Academy was founded to the east of the Minden Female College, but many local residents do not realize the schools were separate entities under different boards. The Minden Female College ceased operation in the mid-1890s, while the Minden Male Academy lasted until 1900. (Author’s collection.)

Pictured in the mid-1890s is a gathering of some Minden Female College alumnae. It is thought that these women are the graduates of the class of 1875 meeting on the 20th anniversary of their graduation. The lady at the far left, with her back to the camera, is Elizabeth Chaffe. Periodically, graduates would get together and remember their times on “College Hill,” as the campus was known. The local newspapers would usually interview some of these ladies and give a glimpse back at a very different time in Minden and in this nation. The quality of education provided for women at the Minden Female College was somewhat amazing considering the status of women’s education in most of the South. (Author’s collection.)

This is one of the last classes of the Minden Male Academy. The school closed after the passage of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898 that set up a funding mechanism for public schools and public schools in Webster Parish were opened. (Courtesy of Lillian Life Willis.)

From the start, athletics played a big role in Minden schools. This is one of the first Minden High School baseball teams, from the period of 1902 to 1904. Records do not indicate if the school sponsored any other sports in those years. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

After using the Minden Female College buildings for 10 years, Minden voters approved the construction of a new modern high school. The next four images are of the students at the Minden High School in the 1909–1910 school year, the final school year before the new school building. The new high school building was the first erected for public education in Minden. (Both, courtesy Webster Parish Library.)

The new Minden High School was intended to serve Minden and the surrounding area for years to come. Ironically, because of population growth, the school that was considered too large by some in the community was filled to capacity in little more than a decade. (Both, courtesy Webster Parish Library.)

The new three-story brick building was one of the educational showplaces of North Louisiana when it was finished for the 1910–1911 school session. The principal of Minden High School at that time was C.A. Ives, later to be the longtime head of the College of Education at Louisiana State University. Ives sparked the drive for a modern building. According to Ives’s memoirs, when he was hired in Minden, he was asked what he thought of the facilities in use, the old Female College buildings, and in his memoirs Ives replies, “They should be burned down.” The board, which included several alumnae of the Minden Female College, was stunned, but hired him anyway. Here is an image of the 1910 high school building after completion but prior to being landscaped and occupied. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Here is a scene from the laying of the cornerstone of the new Minden High School in 1910. The ceremonies featured an address by the state superintendent of education James Aswell and dignitaries from across the South. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

This is a postcard showing the high school from the east after landscaping had been completed and the school was in use. For rural students coming from one-room schools held in homes or churches, the site of this modern structure was an impressive introduction to education. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

This is an image of the auditorium of the 1910 Minden High School (MHS) building. It became the place for public events to be held in Minden, just as the auditorium of the Female College had been for so many years since 1850. A local civic organization was formed strictly to reach out and bring events to utilize the new facility. Local civic meetings, band concerts, and school events were natural choices, but the town and school sought to bring a variety of programs. Traveling theater troupes and musical groups were a regular occurrence, as were religious services moved from local churches. The passage of a tax to build the school had included the opportunities for such programs as part of the pitch for voting “yes,” and the school and community leaders attempted to live up to that promise. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Here are the students from the class at the Minden High School that received the banner for highest attendance during the school year. Although it was an accredited high school, all students in grades one through eleven attended the same campus. (Author’s collection.)

In 1920, Webster Parish hired a new parish superintendent of schools, E.S. Richardson. Richardson instituted a program of consolidation and parish-wide transportation that required this fleet of busses. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

This image gives a close-up view of one of the entrances of the 1910 Minden High School building. Although its use as the main high school only lasted for 15 years, the building was part of the school system for over 40 years. (Author’s collection.)

The students of what today would be considered middle school enrolled at the Minden High School in 1920. In those years, there were only two divisions, grammar school and high school, and these are the oldest students from the grammar school division. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

By 1921, Minden High School was sponsoring athletic teams in several sports, which were proving to be very competitive in their efforts. These two images show the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams for the 1921–1922 school year. While these teams existed, basketball did not grab the local fans’ attention nearly as much as football and baseball until the 1950s. (Both, courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

One of the last events held before the 1910 high school building was replaced was also one of the most tragic. On Tuesday night, February 13, 1923, the Minden High School auditorium was the site of the annual Mardi Gras Pageant. During the performance, sparklers being held by some of the participants in the show ignited the dresses worn by a group of young girls dressed as angels. Sadly, four of the girls died from their injuries, and others suffered severe burns. Minden would not fully celebrate Mardi Gras again for more than a half-century. This photograph shows the cast of the pageant at rehearsal the afternoon before the fire. (Courtesy Cynthia Garrison Payne.)

In 1923, the L&A Railway had relocated much of its operation to Minden, and the influx of population required the local voters to approve funding to construct this modern high school. A bond issue was passed in 1922, and it was expected the building would be occupied by the start of 1923. However, a nationwide shortage of bricks delayed completion of both the high school and the shops for the L&A. The school was first used in the 1923–1924 school year and housed only the high school students. The 1910 building kept the grammar school pupils, and this arrangement would remain in place until the late 1940s, when new elementary schools were erected. Like elsewhere in the South, though, black students were not included in the student population at this school. They were educated across town in what was called a “training school.” (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Famed Shreveport photographer Grabill took this image of students from the new Minden High School posed on the steps of the new school shortly after it opened. The age difference between the youngest and oldest students in this picture seems startling. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

A unique feature to Minden at the new high school was the presence of a sickroom staffed with a nurse, as shown in this picture. Superintendent Richardson was mindful that the students who were bussed into town for school might need treatment before they would be able to return home. (Author’s collection.)

During the Great Depression, school facilities were used in all sorts of ways to aid in economic recovery. At Minden High School, a canning kitchen was set up under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to train local residents to better store and preserve food. This image shows the canning equipment being unloaded at the high school. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

The Minden High School band of 1935 is shown in the football bleachers. While the band was most likely very good, the attention should have been focused on the little boy sitting on the bass drum who served as the mascot for the band. That is future moonwalking astronaut Alan Bean, whose family was temporarily living in Minden. (Author’s collection.)

Minden blacksmith W.H. Luck began making bus bodies at the request of Superintendent Richardson and was able to turn that sideline into a prosperous business. Richardson had consolidated Webster Parish schools for white students down from 39 campus locations to 13 between 1920 and 1925, thus the students scattered across the parish needed a way to get to their new, more distant, schools. After studying the problem of the cost of the busses, Richardson approached Luck suggesting that a local man could manufacture the product at a cost less than the schools were paying and still make a profit. The partnership proved a success, and soon, Richardson was touting the local bus carriages everywhere he went to speak about his consolidation “miracle.” The Luck busses, similar to the one in this picture, were used all across the nation. (Author’s collection.)

Students are shown during a study hall in the library at Minden High School library in 1937. Of particular interest to locals would be the two young men on the right side of the table at the front center of the image. Both of them would grow-up to make great impacts in the Minden community. The one closest to the camera is Henry Hobbs, later a successful Minden attorney and public servant. He served as city attorney, president of the Webster Parish School Board, and as member of the Webster Parish Library Board of Control for more than 50 years. The second young man is O.H. Haynes Jr., son of the then Webster Parish sheriff. The younger Haynes would quarterback Minden High School to its first state football championship the next season and then as an adult serve 12 years as Webster Parish sheriff. (Author’s collection.)

Minden High School won its first state football championship in the fall of 1938, and these are the young men who brought home that championship. They defeated Opelousas High School to gain the title of Class B Champions. MHS had come very close to winning a championship in 1921, but lost the championship game when the team gave up the only points they allowed all season. This 1938 championship would be the first of five that have been won by the Minden Crimson Tide, including in 1938, 1954, 1956, 1963, and 1980. During the 1950s, Minden won four state titles in three different sports in a two-year span—earning a new school motto, Domus victorum, which means “Home of the Champions.” (Author’s collection.)

Minden in these years of segregation had a dual society, but images from the black community are difficult to find. The other public high school in town was for black students. After the first public schools were established in Webster Parish in 1900, the first schools for black pupils were housed in churches. No publicly funded buildings were erected until E.S. Richardson assumed control of the system in 1920. He established the Webster Training Institute in a wood-frame building on the eastern edge of town. It offered largely vocational training at first but soon evolved into an academic school called Webster High School. This is a chemistry lab at Webster during the 1930s. Despite the fact that Richardson was able to construct modern brick schools for all of the white campuses in Webster Parish, Webster High would remain in a wood-frame building until the mid-1950s. (Courtesy Dorcheat Historical Museum.)

The campus at the Minden public school is shown during a break or recess during the 1940s. As Minden continued to grow, it became obvious to most that the two buildings on the campus would soon be inadequate to house the white students in the Minden school district. (Author’s collection.)

The 1940 Minden High School band is shown on the steps of the school. The band’s director, Dwight Blake, is at the left-hand end of the back row in this picture. Blake had come to Minden with the L&A Railway, for which he led the band, and became the first band director for Minden High. (Author’s collection.)

Shown during the 1940s, the 1924 Minden High School building was reaching its capacity while the 1910 building was proving difficult to adapt to modern needs. In the years since 1924, the coming of the Louisiana Ordnance Plant had boosted school populations by more than 25 percent. The 1910 building had not been designed to house classes of the size needed by the growing school. Shortly after the end of World War II, local voters approved funding to build new schools to fix the crowding problem in the white schools. However, the stunning rise in prices after the war and difficulty in determining where the new schools would be located created a nearly three-year delay while the problems at the two schools continued to grow. (Author’s collection.)

After several years delay, two new elementary schools were built on each side of Minden for white students in 1948. Originally, they were called Eastside and Westside Elementary Schools. This image shows Eastside at the time it was built. Later, the school would be renamed E.S. Richardson Elementary. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Shown in the 1950s, this is a classroom at Westside Elementary. Later, this school was renamed the W.G. Stewart Elementary School, in honor of the president of the school board who aided Richardson in the school consolidation. Richardson Elementary is still used today, while Stewart has been closed and demolished. (Courtesy of Dorcheat Historical Association Museum.)

Webster High School and Minden High School both had new buildings constructed in the period between 1953 and 1955. As the national debate over segregation continued, many communities in the South began to recognize that it was obvious their facilities for black schools were clearly only separate and not equal. In Webster Parish, the response was a series of new tax issues that were passed to remedy that situation. One of those issues built a new Minden High School, replacing the old 1910 building. Another expanded athletic facilities at Minden High. The third built a new Webster High School and two new elementary schools for the black community. This image of a dance held at Webster High School was taken after the new buildings were constructed. (Courtesy of Dorcheat Historical Association Museum.)

Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal brought changes and jobs to Minden. One of the more unique WPA projects in Minden was this book-rebinding project held for white women at a downtown location. To qualify for the program, women had to be the sole provider for their household. As shown on page 94, canning kitchens created jobs for women to teach the public how to can at the facilities. In addition, Webster Parish was also part of the Historical Records Survey project that inventoried the existing parish records and their locations. That tool is still useful to researchers today and makes it much easier to learn about history. (Author’s collection.)

On the other side of Minden, the National Youth Administration (NYA), a branch of the WPA, operated a similar book-rebinding project for young black women between the ages of 16 and 25. In those years, most young women had either completed school or dropped out by the age of 16, and they were largely without work options other than as a domestic. The NYA project was hosted at Webster High School, as seen in this image. Unfortunately, most of the programs sponsored in the South were segregated, because of the laws of the states and the wishes of Southern lawmakers in Congress. So, the programs in the black community were not as well funded and not as successful, despite the fact that the economic problems of the day were equally, if not more, severe in the black community. (Author’s collection.)

Another New Deal initiative that reached Minden was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The federal government was heavily involved in soil conservation projects in the Minden area and even constructed a lake. The CCC cadets, housed behind these gates at Minden’s Camp Meyer, worked on the projects. (Author’s collection.)

Cadets are shown relaxing in the reading room at Camp Meyer. Most of the young men assigned to the camp came from either Georgia or New Jersey. In accordance with the laws of the times, all cadets sent to Camp Meyer were white. (Author’s collection.)

Minden’s Wiley-Pevy Post of the American Legion had been founded in 1919 and was a very active chapter; however, members had no permanent meeting spot, rotating between several local business locations before building this post hall in the early 1950s. Today, it is still in use. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

The men in this picture made lasting impacts on Minden through their roles as attorneys in Minden. The members of the Minden Bar Association were photographed in the early 1950s on the occasion of the retirement of Second Circuit Court of Appeal justice J.F. McInnis of Minden. (Courtesy of Henry Hobbs.)

In 1929, Webster Parish became only the fourth parish in Louisiana to open a full-service public library. This picture was taken at the grand opening in October 1929. The gentleman looking over the book cart at the center of the picture is Superintendent E.S. Richardson. (Author’s collection.)

The new library had extended hours making it available for working patrons to stop by after their jobs to read. A movement had been started to bring a library to Minden as early as the 1880s but it took more than 40 years to make the service a reality. (Author’s collection.)

For the first decades of its existence the Webster Parish Library partnered with Webster Parish Schools to provide books to the schools, both black and white. During the summer, the library system used the school facilities for branches in the smaller communities, allowing the students to read during a period when in the past they would have not been able to get any books. Here is the library truck unloading books at the Webster Training Institute in Minden. The library system was one of the few entities in Minden and Webster Parish that truly attempted to provide equal access and opportunity to the parish residents regardless of race. Because of the economic hardship and the lack of quality schools in the black community, this access to reading materials provided by the library made a tremendous difference in the lives of many residents. (Author’s collection.)

Book Week was clearly a cause for celebration at the Webster Parish Library, as shown in this image from 1937. The library sponsored reading programs for all ages from the time it opened, and those programs always focused most on improving reading skills of students. Accordingly, this celebration, like most other library activities, was held in conjunction with the parish schools, and school students were transported to the library for the special event held on the last day of that week. Contests were held among the students who came in costume, dressed as characters from their favorite books, with winners selected from each grade. The school band played, and visiting entertainment was provided for all in attendance as reading and learning were celebrated. Minden seemed to truly embrace the asset of having an active, quality public library in the community. (Author’s collection.)

One of the outreach programs that has had the greatest success is the summer reading program and storytime at the library. Here is a picture of storytime from the early years of the library operation. (Courtesy of Webster Parish Library.)

Started to keep students reading though the summer months while school was out of session, the Webster Parish Library storytimes and summer reading programs, as shown in this picture, have been enjoyed by thousands of youngsters over the 85 years the library has been in operation. (Author’s collection.)

In 1964–1965, the Webster Parish Library moved from its original location to this structure, formerly the home of the Ferguson family. The home had been purchased by the Edomond Stewart family after the Ferguson heirs sold the property. Jim (Mrs. Edomond) Stewart served for many years on the library board of control and wanted to leave a legacy for the organization. In her will, she stipulates the home be given to the library, and her family, through her sister Dell Brown, carried out those wishes. Renovations began on the Stewart Home, and after 35 years in this location, the Webster Parish Library moved to this building in late 1964, formally opening in 1965. The old home served as the parish’s main library for about 30 years, and today, it has been renovated again as the Stewart Center of the Library, hosting meetings and the administrative offices of the library system. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

In February 1871, Minden became the parish seat of the newly formed Webster Parish. The next year, this courthouse was completed, at a total cost of just over $20,000, to house parish government. This courthouse would serve the parish for the next 33 years until foundation problems caused by poor drainage forced it to be replaced by a new structure. The erosion of the soil around the building, visible in this picture, indicates the major drainage problems encountered on the property. Becoming a parish seat had been the major goal of Minden’s founder, Charles Veeder, but after trying for nearly 15 years, Veeder had left Minden for California in the Gold Rush of 1849. It took the political machinations of Reconstruction in Louisiana to lead to the creation of Webster Parish and Minden gaining the status of the government center of the new political subdivision. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Two prominent Minden politicians are shown in front of the 1872 courthouse shortly before the building was replaced and demolished. On the left is Connell Fort, who served as a town alderman for many years and was elected mayor of Minden on three occasions. Fort is seen earlier as a younger man in the photograph of the German Club. He would preside over some controversial events in the local community. During his final term as mayor, a political feud to which he was a party led to the assassination of a member of the Minden City Council in 1933. After that tragedy, Fort was defeated when he sought reelection and never held office again. On the left is H.A. Barnes, who served two terms as mayor in the early years of the 20th century. The two men were political allies. (Author’s collection.)

Structural problems led to the building of a new Webster Parish Courthouse in 1905. In its original condition, as seen here, this courthouse had a metal dome that included a four-faced clock. The inclusion of a clock in the tower of the courthouse had been quite a topic for public debate in Minden. There were two newspapers in Minden, and one took the position that a clock was needed to show the town was a forward-looking, progressive community, while the other held that such a clock was a waste of taxpayer money. Clearly, the pro-clock forces won that battle in the short term, but the dome and the clock would be plagued with problems over the years and, eventually, replaced. Inside the courthouse, there was a unique circular courtroom under the dome. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

At the same time as the courthouse, a new parish jail was built replacing an older structure that had actually been condemned for more than a decade while still in use. This unique castle-like structure of the jail was a vast contrast from other buildings in the community. (Author’s collection.)

Another new edition to government buildings came in 1916 when Minden constructed its first post office. Before this time, the US post office rented space in local businesses to host the mail office. This building was located on the site of the old 1872 courthouse. (Author’s collection.)

In 1926, after nearly 100 years of its existence, Minden finally constructed its first building dedicated to serve as the city hall. That same year, the town completed a new charter approved by voters. In addition, the population boom that occurred after the L&A shops arrived allowed the town to grow to where it, for the first time, met the standards for it to be officially classified as a city according to state law. This building housed all city offices and the station for the city’s volunteer fire department. The city offices were eventually moved in the 1950s, but the fire station continued to be used into the 1970s, when the building was demolished. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

The largest section of the new government building was dedicated to the volunteer fire department. Minden organized its first volunteer fire company in 1860, but through the years, the town had been plagued by many disastrous fires. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Because of the past fire losses, Minden became dedicated to providing some of the best firefighting equipment of any small town in the region. Items such as this American LaFrance fire truck helped provide more security to local residents and lowed insurance rates. (Author’s collection.)

This is the elected governing body for Minden in 1926. With the town’s change in status to a city, this was the first group to be called a city council under law. The men are posed standing in front of the new city hall, which also opened that year. Third from the left is Minden’s “boy mayor,” 24-year-old Robert F. Kennon. Kennon would go on to a distinguished career as a prosecutor, judge, and soldier. His political career culminated with his election as governor of Louisiana in 1952. Kennon had returned home to Minden from LSU Law School and, within a year, was elected to the city’s highest office. Pictured are, from left to right, J. Ronald Murph, W.T. Burnett, Mayor Kennon, W.R. Garrison, Will Life, and S.H. McCrary. (Courtesy of Dorcheat Historical Association Museum and Douglas McCrary.)

A later city council is shown in 1937. Seated second from left is Mayor David Thomas. Thomas was an immigrant from Wales who was an attorney, journalist, and professor and had many other roles during his time in Minden. (Author’s collection.)

After the tornado of May 1, 1933, the Webster Parish Courthouse had remodeling done to the dome. The nonfunctioning clock was removed, and as seen in this image from the late 1930s, large windows were added to the now wooden dome. (Author’s collection.)

The view in this picture taken from Main Street during the 1940s looks toward the castle-like turrets of the Webster Parish Jail. The license plates on the vehicles are for 1941. From this angle, the bricks of Front Street are clearly visible. On the right is the Webster Parish Courthouse with the cars parked in the small street running to the east side of the courthouse. According to local tradition, this street runs though the area where the hanging tree used for executions was located during the middle portion of the 19th century. The last legal hanging in Minden took place in the 1880s, and after that date, prisoners were sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to be executed. To the left of the jail is Abraham Dow’s store, which is featured earlier in this book and on the cover. It appears the store is undergoing painting or some other repairs. (Author’s collection.)

Former mayor Robert Kennon made the Webster Parish Courthouse a stop on his campaign for governor of Louisiana in 1952. Kennon would win the election and become the only governor of the state to claim Minden as home. (Author’s collection.)

Plagued by the same drainage problems that doomed the 1872 courthouse on that site, the 1916 post office was in very bad condition by the early 1950s when this picture was taken. It would be replaced by a new post office on another site in 1961. This building was torn down, and today this location is home to a bank. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

Jokingly called the “tree of knowledge” by local residents, this tree stood at the northeast corner of the Webster Parish Courthouse property. The name came from the older gentlemen of the town who, as seen in this picture, sat on the benches beneath the tree and “solved the problems of the world.” The tree was destroyed in a storm in 1955. (Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections, Noel Memorial Library.)

By 1952, growing pains and age were impacting city and parish structures. Both the Webster Parish Jail, shown here, and the Webster Parish Courthouse were showing signs of needing replacements. In addition, the city of Minden was outgrowing the city hall/fire station, and so community leaders got together and worked out a solution. (Author’s collection.)

In 1953, the City of Minden traded the old Civic Park to the parish in exchange for the old parish jail and courthouse. A new courthouse was constructed on the site of the park, the jail was destroyed, and the old courthouse was converted to Minden City Hall. The 1905 courthouse would fill the role of Minden City Hall for the last 17 years of its existence. This image shows city hall during the 1960s. Note that the dome on the building has entered its third and final state. The windows added in 1933 have been removed, and the space has been boarded over by this point. The cars are parked in the same area as in the earlier picture from the 1940s, but the years of wear and tear on the building and that area of downtown are clearly visible in this image. (Author’s collection.)

The race for mayor in 1966 was an indicator of great change coming to Minden. In that election, Tom Colten, shown along with members of the city council being sworn into office by Clerk of Court Clarence Wiley, became the first Republican ever elected mayor in Minden and one of the few since the years of Reconstruction in the entire state of Louisiana. Colten had come to Minden in the 1950s as editor and the publisher of the local newspaper and soon gained respect as a local leader and as a person with a vision for the town. Louisiana was still a one-party state as victory in the Democratic Primary normally was tantamount to winning election to office. The respect he earned in a community where Republicans were practically nonexistent was a great tribute to his character and abilities. Directly behind Mayor Colten, the head of councilman Jack Batton is visible. Then, from left to right, are council members Tony Elzen, Lonnie Cupples, Jack Crisler, and finally Police Chief Harvey McClung. (Courtesy of Tom Colten.)

Colten brought a more businesslike approach to the office of mayor, which had largely been treated as part-time work in the past. He set out on a program of modernization that would bring many civic improvements. But, in addition, as seen in this picture, he had a sense of humor as a politician. This picture resulted from Colten losing a bet with some local residents, so in the spirit of goodwill, Colten appeared at a local parade with his unique mode of transportation, a “Democratic Donkey.” It was yet another example that Colten, unlike many past mayors, recognized the need to project a friendly image for a town that labeled itself the “Friendliest City in the South.” His efforts would do much toward keeping Minden moving ahead after the local economy took another hit when the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant suffered from cutbacks. (Courtesy of Tom Colten.)

Colten (left) had the unique ability to reach across party lines to develop a close working relationships with Democratic politicians who still ran the state and dominated regional politics. He is shown here with Democratic congressman Joe D. Waggoner of the 4th District of Louisiana. (Courtesy of Tom Colten.)

While Waggoner was a conservative Democrat, Colten also worked well with more liberal Democratic politicians. In this picture, he is welcoming Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards (left) to a speaking engagement at the new Minden Civic Center’s dedication in 1971. (Courtesy of Tom Colten.)

Probably the crown jewel of Colten’s time in office was his direction of the construction of a new Minden Civic Center and City Hall Complex. This is an architect’s sketch of the planned building shown to the public in 1968. When it was finished, the facility replaced the businesses formerly located on Back Street, such as Abraham Dow’s and other stores shown earlier in this book. The old city hall was also demolished, and Pearl Street was extended through the area where the old building had stood. Today, more than 40 years later, this complex is still in full use by the city. The city offices have been expanded and remodeled, but the Minden Civic Center is still largely in the state it was in Colten’s day and is host for most major events held in the Minden community. (Courtesy of Tom Colten.)