Minden, Louisiana

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Minden
City
City of Minden
The combined Minden City Hall and Convention Center opened on Broadway Street in 1970.
The combined Minden City Hall and Convention Center opened on Broadway Street in 1970.
Location of Minden in Webster Parish, Louisiana.
Location of Minden in Webster Parish, Louisiana.
Coordinates: 32°37′0″N 93°17′0″W / 32.61667°N 93.28333°W / 32.61667; -93.28333Coordinates: 32°37′0″N 93°17′0″W / 32.61667°N 93.28333°W / 32.61667; -93.28333
Country  United States
States  Louisiana
Founded 1836
Government
 • Government

Mayor - Marvin Thomas "Tommy" Davis (R)
Police Chief - Steven Wayne Cropper (I)
City Judge - Charles Sherburne Sentell III (I)
Ward Marshal - Jack "Randy" Shelley (D)
Current City Council by district:
A - Wayne Edwards (D)
B - Fayrine Kennon-Gilbert (D)
C - Vincen "Cheeze" Bradford (D)
D - Michael Scott Toland (R)
E - Lawson Benny Gray (I)

Annual budget - $31 million (2015-2016)
Area[1]
 • Total 15.16 sq mi (39.26 km2)
 • Land 14.99 sq mi (38.82 km2)
 • Water 0.17 sq mi (0.44 km2)
Population (2010)
 • Total 13,082
 • Estimate (2016)[2] 12,577
 • Density 839.08/sq mi (323.96/km2)
Time zone UTC-6 (CST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code 71055
Area code(s) 318
Website Minden, Louisiana

Minden is a small city in and the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, United States.[3] It is located twenty-eight miles (45 km) east of Shreveport in Caddo Parish. The population has been relatively stable since 1960, when it was 12,786. Minden is 51.7 percent African American.[4]

Minden is part of the larger Shreveport – Bossier City metropolitan area. It is a regional trade center for the neighboring parishes of Bienville and Claiborne, from which Webster Parish was carved in 1871.

Minden has possessed a United States post office since 1839.[5] The current postal building, a 10,000-square-foot structure at 111 South Monroe Street, was completed under a $285,000 contract awarded in 1959 to McInnis Construction Company of Minden.[6]

The community has been served by a newspaper since the 1850s. The current publication, the Minden Press-Herald, is located on Gleason Street south of Broadway. The building was formerly used by a grocery store. The Press-Herald became a daily newspaper on July 18, 1966, but was earlier published as two weekly papers, the Minden Press on Mondays and the Minden Herald on Thursdays. For a time there was also the Webster Signal-Tribune and other publications.[7]

On October 15, 2012, an ordnance bunker at nearby Camp Minden exploded resulting in minor property damage. Camp Minden is the site of the former Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant, once the major area employer.[8] In December 2012, police began the removal of 2,700 tons of explosives from Camp Minden, leading to evacuations in the nearby town of Doyline.[9]

In 1959, Minden was named the "Cleanest City in Louisiana."[10]

History[edit]

Louisiana and Arkansas Railway depot in Minden, c. 1904
The Federal Building at 111 South Monroe Street in Minden has since 1959 housed the post office. From 1916 to 1959, the United States post office was located on Main Street in a building later occupied by a bank. It moved in 1959 to the Federal Building. Previous to 1916, the post office in Minden had been located in leased locations.[11]
The Minden Coca-Cola Bottling Plant is a distribution center at 412 Pine Street across from Minden Cemetery

Early settlement[edit]

Among the original settlers in the Minden area was Newitt Drew, a Welshman originally from Virginia, who built a gristmill and sawmill on Dorcheat Bayou in south Webster Parish in what became the since defunct Overton community. Minden itself was established in 1836 by Charles H. Veeder, a native of Schenectady, New York, who named it for the city of Minden in Germany.[12] Veeder left Minden during the California Gold Rush and spent the rest of his life practicing law in Bakersfield, California.[13]

A year before Veeder arrived, a group from Phillipsburg (now Monaca), Pennsylvania, led by the Countess Leon, settled seven miles (11 km) northeast of Minden in what was then Claiborne Parish. For nearly four decades, this Germantown Colony operated on a communal basis.[14] It was dispersed in 1871, when Webster Parish was severed from Claiborne Parish.[15] The "Countess" moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she died in 1881.[14]

One of three Utopian Society settlements in this area, the Germantown Colony was the most successful and lasted the longest, having peaked at fifty to sixty pioneers but usually with fewer than forty followers. The settlement had been planned by the countess' husband, Bernhard Müller, known as the Count von Leon. He died of yellow fever on August 29, 1834, at Grand Ecore, four miles (6 km) from Natchitoches, before he reached Webster Parish.[16] Leon and his followers attempted to build an earthly utopia, socialist in practice, while awaiting for the Second Coming of Christ. For his religious views, Leon had been exiled from Germany. He intended to plant the settlement in Webster Parish to coincide with the latitude of Jerusalem, 31 degrees, 47 minutes. The colonists worshiped under oak trees at the center of the colony. They supported themselves from farming, with a concentration on cotton.[14] The settlement is preserved at the Germantown Colony and Museum.

A second museum in Minden, the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, named for Dorcheat Bayou, is located downtown at 116 Pearl Street near the post office. It preserves the cultural history of the city and parish from the 19th century.

Civil War[edit]

Statue of a Confederate soldier at the western end of Jacqueline Park in Minden near the point where Main and Broadway streets turn into the Shreveport Road. The caption concludes with "Lest We Forget" engraved twice.

During the American Civil War, a large Confederate encampment, which housed some 15,000 soldiers was located east of Minden. At the time Minden was a supply depot for the troops. Some thirty Confederate soldiers who died in the Battle of Mansfield and another engagement at Pleasant Hill are buried in the historic Minden Cemetery located at Pine and Goodwill streets and Bayou Avenue. A modern cemetery, Gardens of Memory, opened in 1957 off the Lewisville Road north of Minden.

In 1862, Confederate General Richard Taylor, son of Zachary Taylor, issued orders to round up deserters. According to the historian John D. Winters of Louisiana Tech University, near Minden were seen "many robust-looking men claiming to be 'discharged soldiers.'" General Taylor reported that a "'large number of persons liable to military service . . . , deserters, enrolled conscripts who have failed to report, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, are to be found throughout the state.' He ordered militia officers and parish sheriffs to arrest all men who could not prove legal exemption or absence from military service because of furlough or parole. Liberal rewards were offered for the apprehension of such men."[17]

Governor Henry Watkins Allen tried to make the state self-sufficient during the war. A factory for the manufacture of cotton and wool cards was erected at Minden and in full operation by the end of the war.[18] In 1864–1865, divisions of General Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, hero at Mansfield, and Maj. Gen. John H. Forney established winter quarters near Minden.[19]

Coldest state temperature[edit]

On February 13, 1899, Minden recorded the state's all-time coldest temperature, −16 °F (−27 °C), during the height of the Great Blizzard. Another −16 °F (−27 °C) reading was recorded in Minden on February 2, 1899.[20] The humid subtropical climate, however, is usually mild in winter and mostly hot in summer.

1933 tornado[edit]

1933 Disastrous year at Dorcheat Historical Association Museum in Minden
Since October 1940, a barber shop has operated at this Main Street location in Minden. It was established by Dan T. Pace Sr. (1906-1973), and continued by his son, Dan Jr. (1929-2000).[21]

During the Great Depression, one of the two Minden banks failed. Five banks currently exist, Minden Building and Loan, Capital One, Regions, Citizens, and Richland State.

At nightfall on Monday, May 1, 1933, a tornado, then called a cyclone, destroyed some 20 percent of the residences in Minden; fifty were killed, and four hundred sustained injuries. Mayor Connell Fort sought assistance from the Louisiana National Guard Some fifty thousand sightseers came to Minden to view the damage and caused lengthy traffic jams.[22]

Thereafter, a fire destroyed many homes and much of the business district, including the large Goodwill Building, established in 1882 by Alfred Goodwill, which once housed the largest general store in Louisiana.[23] During the national bank holiday of 1933, the funds of both Minden citizens and businesses were frozen, making recovery from the tornado and the fire more difficult. Later, a summer flood destroyed a third of the crops in the area. Because of these quadruple tragedies, 1933 has been called the "Year of Disaster" in Minden.[24][25]

Ben F. Turner Sr. (1883–1934), was the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway express agent in Minden and the volunteer fire chief. During the 1933 fire, he sustained a heart attack and hence died the next year of cardiac failure. Oddly, Ben Turner's great grandfather had died in 1835 while fighting a fire at a brush arbor meeting in Georgia. Ben Turner's son, Harold Martin "Happy" Turner (1911–1988), was a well-known boarding house, restaurant owner, and civic booster in Minden.[26]

1946 lynching case[edit]

The 1946 beatings and attempted lynchings of John Cecil Jones and Albert Harris Jr., African-American men, were instances of violence against black veterans in the post-war years. The events were covered up by Minden police, the Webster Parish Sheriff's Department, the coroner's office, and several well-known individuals in the community. The crime was the only lynching in Louisiana that year. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, investigated the case and wrote: "We had incontrovertible evidence of a multiple-agency cover-up."[27]

John Cecil Jones was an honorably discharged veteran of World War II and a cousin of Albert Harris Jr. A woman in rural Webster Parish complained that black men had trespassed on her property. O.H. Haynes Jr., then a sheriff's deputy, questioned both Jones and Harris about the alleged crime. He released Harris to a mob in nearby Dixie Inn, Louisiana, who took the young man to a rural area where he was bound, covered, and beaten by several other men.

Fearing for his son's life, Albert Harris Sr. sent him out of the state after he returned home. Deputy Sheriff Haynes went to the house to retrieve Harris Jr. Learning that Harris Sr., had sent the son away, Haynes broke the senior Harris' jaw. Harris Jr., was eventually delivered to Haynes' custody. The police arrested John Cecil Jones, the cousin and veteran, at his workplace in Cotton Valley.

Both men were jailed, where they were tortured and beaten multiple times by Haynes and another deputy, Charles Edwards. On August 8, 1946, Haynes released both men to a white mob in front of the old jail. The mob took the men south of Minden, where they beat and tortured them, leaving them for dead. Jones died from the beatings and torture, but Harris Jr. somehow survived.[27]

According to R. Harmon Drew Sr., then the assistant district attorney for Bossier and Webster parishes, jail records had been manipulated. According to the FBI, Dr. Richardson tampered with and concealed evidence taken from the crime scene, including a mechanical pencil and a wristwatch.[27]

Whitfield Jack of Shreveport (brother of State Representative Wellborn Jack), Barry Booth, A. S. Drew, and Harmon Caldwell Drew were defense attorneys for Haynes, Edwards, and the other defendants. R. Harmon Drew was defense counsel for the Minden Police Chief, Benjamin Gary Gantt (died 1948). He was not indicted by the grand jury, although multiple witnesses' testified that various city police officers had escorted the mob vehicles to the Minden city limits. Newspaper writer Paul Corvin likened city police at the time to the Gestapo but did not write such accordingly out of fear for his life.[27]

Eugene H. Lowe Jr., the American Legion post vice-commander, likened local law enforcement personnel to outlaws. His sentiments echoed those of the reporter Paul Corvin.[27] Eventually, Harris Jr., fled Louisiana. The NAACP and the FBI became involved in the case and seeking justice for Harris and Jones. The federal government indicted deputies Haynes and Edwards and four others, who were tried for violating the civil rights of Jones and Harris Jr. Ultimately, an all-white jury did not convict any of the six defendants.[27]

Hank Williams married in Minden[edit]

Country singer Hank Williams Sr., married Billie Jean Jones Eshliman in Minden on October 18, 1952. The next day, the couple repeated the vows in two separate public ceremonies. Less than three months later, Williams was dead. A judge ruled that the wedding was not legal because Billie Jean's divorce did not become final until eleven days after she had married Williams. Billie Jean later married Johnny Horton, another notable singer. Horton died in 1960 and is interred at Hill Crest Cemetery in Haughton in Bossier Parish.[28]

Geography[edit]

Minden has an elevation of 253 feet (77.1 m).[29] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.0 square miles (31 km2), of which 11.9 square miles (31 km2) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km2) (0.75%) is water.

Demographics[edit]

Historical population
Census Pop. %±
1850533—
18601,144114.6%
18701,100−3.8%
18801,1131.2%
18901,29816.6%
19001,56120.3%
19103,00292.3%
19206,105103.4%
19305,623−7.9%
19406,67718.7%
19509,78746.6%
196012,78530.6%
197013,9969.5%
198015,0847.8%
199013,661−9.4%
200013,027−4.6%
201013,0820.4%
Est. 201612,577[2]−3.9%
U.S. Decennial Census[30]

As of the census[31] of 2000, there were 13,027 people, 5,166 households, and 3,430 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,095.2 people per square mile (423.0/km²). There were 5,795 housing units at an average density of 487.2 per square mile (188.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 46.34% White, 52.17% African American, 0.31% Native American, 0.27% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races, and 0.65% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.61% of the population.

There were 5,166 households, out of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.6% were married couples living together, 22.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.6% were non-families. 30.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.05.

In the city of Minden, the population was spread out with 27.0% under the age of 18, 8.6% from 18 to 24, 25.3% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, and 17.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years, higher than the state median age of 34.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 84.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.7 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $24,175, and the median income for a family was $31,477. Males had a median income of $28,401 versus $19,199 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,114. About 21.0% of families and 26.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 39.3% of those under age 18 and 20.1% of those age 65 or over.

Economy[edit]

Minden has numerous businesses and an active Chamber of Commerce, which maintains offices near the intersection of Broadway and the Sibley Road. Two former executive directors of the chamber were elected as mayor, Tom Colten in 1966 and Paul A. Brown in 1989.

Minden was a stop on the former Louisiana and Arkansas Railway. The local depot, located where Main Street turns into the Shreveport Road, was constructed in 1923. By the 1950s, it was converted into a freezer locker plant, used primarily for the storage and sale of meat. The building was razed in the spring of 1982.[32]

The Webster Parish Courthouse, completed in the spring of 1953, is located west of its former location. The latter site was paved in the early 1970s to serve as a parking lot for the Minden City Hall/Civic Center. Governor Robert F. Kennon, a former resident and mayor of Minden from 1926 to 1928, spoke at the dedication ceremony.[33]

In February 2014, the Fibrebond Corporation, which builds concrete shelters, announced a $2.5 million capital expansion project which will revive an inactive container mill adjacent to the company's existing manufacturing site in Minden. The expansion will create 225 jobs, which will pay $3,000 gross per month. Some twenty-five additional jobs will also become available temporarily for the pending construction work at the site.[34]

Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Minden and Minden Redbirds[edit]

Larry B. Hunter (1896–1971) and his wife, the former Gladys Powell (1899–1973), a native of Sibley, for more than fifty years operated the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Minden, at 412 Pine Street. The company was founded by Larry Hunter's father, William S. Hunter, a native of New Orleans, as North Louisiana Bottling Works in 1901. The company did not acquire a franchise to bottle Coca-Cola until 1905. When William S. Hunter died in 1919, Larry Hunter, at the age of twenty-three, became head of the company.[35]

While soft drinks were bottled at the facility into the early 1980s, the former bottling plant is now only a distribution center. The present brick building, constructed in 1926, is the third building to serve as home to the company. It is located across from the Minden Cemetery.

The Hunters subsidized the Minden Redbirds, a semi-professional baseball team. They also built a regulation sized baseball field for the team; established the former Hunter's Playground, which included Minden's first public swimming pool, and Hunter's Playhouse that hosted weekly dances for area teenagers. These were the first public recreational facilities in Minden for young people. The playground and playhouse operated from 1940 to 1965. A memorial statue in commemoration of Larry and Gladys Hunter's gifts to the city of Minden is located outside the Coca-Cola facility at the corner of Pine and Goodwill streets in Minden.

The Minden Redbirds played at Griffith Stadium. After 1900, a quarter horse racing track operated at the site of the future stadium, adjacent to the parish fairgrounds. B. F. Griffith Sr. (1867-1960), the Webster Parish sheriff from 1900 to 1908, was also one of the founding members of the Webster Parish Fair Association. In 1947, he succeeded in getting the property transferred to the city, and the whole area became known as Griffith Park. Griffith's son, Benjamin Jr. (1927-2014), was a leading civic figure in the community often called upon to address civic groups on local history or to answer reporters' questions. A staunch individualist, he was in his later years still involved in motorcycling and skydiving.[36]

In 1950, Gladys Hunter became the first woman to have been elected to the Webster Parish School Board, on which she served for two six-year terms. In honor of her legacy the company funds a scholarship to be awarded each year to a deserving graduate of Minden High School.

A collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia is on display at the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum at 116 Pearl Street in Minden. Much of this material was assembled by Ben Hunter (1930-2015), one of the sons of Larry and Gladys Hunter, who was also instrumental in publishing the 1997 book, Memories of Hunter's. He was the chief executive officer from 1972 to 2001 at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Minden and the 1997 Minden "Man of the Year".[37]

Theaters[edit]

In the mid-20th century, Minden had two film theaters and a third drive-in facility. To promote the film industry, in 1951, theater owners Edgar Beach Hands Jr. (1905–1972), and Ruth Cobb Cheshire Lowe (1906–1991) hosted several film stars in a visit to the city. One was a future U.S. senator from California, George Murphy. Another was Robert Stack of the later ABC television series The Untouchables. Jesse White, best known for Maytag commercials, also visited.[38] Hands' Rex Theatre on Main Street closed on March 31, 1974, after thirty-seven years of operations.[39] The site of the Rex became a parking lot for nearby Minden Medical Center. By the late 1970s, Minden had no theaters. Its last was the West Plaza Twin Cinema, a building still standing off the Homer Road.

In the 21st century, several motion pictures have been filmed in the city and the surrounding areas of Webster Parish. Numerous cities and towns smaller than Minden still have maintained the demand for a theater.

Though it no longer has a theater, Minden is the city of license for CW affiliate KPXJ, Channel 21.

Education[edit]

Main building at new Northwest Louisiana Technical College campus off the Interstate 20 service road; groundbreaking was held on September 6, 2013, with Governor Bobby Jindal, among others, cutting the ribbon.[40]
Renovated Minden High School (2007) on College Street

The Webster Parish School Board maintains administrative offices at 1442 Sheppard Street. Minden High School, located just north of the downtown, completed major renovation in 2007. The original Minden High School located adjacent to the current campus dates to the turn of the 20th century.

Northwest Louisiana Technical College, a vocational technical institution, was formerly located on Constable Street near the Webster Parish fairgrounds and Griffith Stadium, a baseball field, where the former Minden Redbirds semi-professional team played. Governor Earl Kemp Long had included a trade school for Webster Parish in his 1948 platform, and State Senator Drayton R. Boucher and State Representative C.W. Thompson set about getting the initial $175,000 in funding through the legislature.[41]

In the summer of 2013, Northwest Technical College was relocated to a new and expanded site on the Interstate 20 service road. State Senator Robert Adley, who represents Webster and Bossier parishes, successfully sponsored SB 204, which will provide $251.6 million in financing and construction for twenty-nine projects at various technical college campuses across the state, including the new Minden facility.[42]

Elementary schools in Minden include E. S. Richardson, J. L. Jones, and J. E. Harper schools. In a cost-cutting move, the board in 2011 closed William G. Stewart Elementary School (built 1949), and the structure was quickly razed thereafter, leaving behind only a vacant field on Middle Landing Street.

The middle school, Webster Junior High School, is located on East Union Street at the site of the former historically black Webster High School, which closed in 1975, with desegregation into Minden High School. The previous junior high school, Theresa M. Lowe Junior High School located at 109 Clerk Street near the fairgrounds, was closed after desegregation and converted into an alternative school. Theresa Lowe (1907–1959), namesake of the former junior high school, graduated from Rayville High School in Rayville in Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana and received her Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. She taught seventh grade at the former Minden Junior High School and was a leader in the Louisiana Teachers Association, since renamed Louisiana Association of Educators. Two of her brothers practiced law together in Springhill. Charles McConnell was also the mayor of Springhill from 1954 to 1958, and Nathaniel Julius McConnell Sr., was the city judge there from 1956 until 1986.[43][44]

The private academy known as the Glenbrook School, located on Country Club Circle off the Lewisville Road, began in 1970 within the First Baptist Church of Minden.

The Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary, which offers bachelor's, master's, and doctor of theology degrees, is located off the Homer Road in east Minden. The theologically conservative institution was opened in 1952 by the then pastor L. L. Clover of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, which is located adjacent to the seminary.

The main branch of the Webster Parish Library is located on East and West Street in Minden in a newer structure which opened in 1996. The $3 million library project, which included renovation of the previous plant to the right of the new structure, was funded through a 20-year bond issue. In a 17 percent turnout in a special election held in October 1993, voters approved the bond issue, 2,600 to 957.[45]

St. Jude Hospital[edit]

Minden has long led the nation in per capita fundraising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. From 1975 to 2015, city residents raised $13,923,763. Early in 2016, another $1,441,599 was raised through auction, a benefit run, and school fundraisers. In the first year of the auction, $10,000 was raised, but the amounts grew rapidly over the ensuing years. Annual records have frequently been toppled.[46]

Notable people[edit]

Politics[edit]

Sports[edit]

Turner's Pond off the Lewisville Road as photographed from Lakeview United Methodist Church
Plaques of the ten military personnel from Minden who died in the Vietnam War are displayed at the Veterans Memorial on Turner's Pond
Veterans Day parade, 2013, in downtown Minden
Griffith Memorial Stadium on Constable Street is named for B. F. Griffith Sr. (1867–1960), the Webster Parish sheriff from 1900 to 1908 who is considered the father of the Webster Parish Fair. The stadium hosts baseball games.[95]
The Minden Recreation Center off Interstate 20

Others[edit]

In popular culture[edit]

On January 9, 2012, MTV premiered the reality television show Caged, about mixed martial artists fighting to gain the means to leave Minden.

Gallery[edit]

  • First Baptist Church at 301 Pennsylvania Avenue; since 2009, Leland Crawford has served as the senior pastor; George Washington Baines, maternal great-grandfather of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, was the founding pastor in the 19th century.
  • St. John's Episcopal Church at 1107 Broadway, also in the Minden Historic District
  • Earlier located for decades at 609 Goodwill Street near the parish fairgrounds under the pastor T. W. Barnes, who served there in the pulpit from 1947 until his death in 2006, the First United Pentecostal Church now occupies new quarters at 612 Highway 531.
  • Formerly downtown across from the courthouse, St. Paul Catholic Church is located at 410 Fincher Road.
  • Main Street in Minden facing west
  • Downtown Minden with the signature water tower in the background
  • The main Webster Parish Library operates on East and West Street in Minden, with branches located throughout the parish.
  • The Minden Community House is located at Victory Park in this facility completed in 1987 by the W-M Construction Company of Minden, after the previous contractor, Tarver Brothers of Shreveport, defaulted on the project. The previous community house building was razed.[106]
  • Attractive but small Academy Park in the Minden Historic District is the site of the former Minden Male Academy.
  • Minden Historic Residential District sign in Academy Park
  • The McDonald-Monk House, built in Victorian style in 1904 at the intersection of Lewisville Road and East and West Street in the Historic Residential District, was added in 1986 to the National Register of Historic Places. The house is named for its builder, the banker J. W. McDonald, and the educator Miriam Robinson Monk (1923–2006), who purchased it in 1968.
  • Dorcheat Historical Association Museum at 116 Pearl Street near the post office sponsors monthly public lectures.
  • One of the oldest continuous businesses in Minden is the Western Auto dealership operated downtown by John P. Collins and previously by his grandfather and mother.
  • The former Holland Crawford Insurance agency clock has long been a mainstay of downtown Minden. The company was founded by Castle Overstreet Holland (1895–1981) and operated until 2012 by his son-in-law, Wayne Scott Crawford (1928–2014).[107]
  • Minden Medical Center, located downtown, ranks among the "Top 100" hospitals in the nation.
  • Fountain behind the Veterans Memorial at Eagle Park on Turner's Pond; Eagle Park was largely donated to the public by the Minden contractor George Fithen (1932-2017), a native of Jefferson County, Ohio, who also provided for the annual July 4 fireworks at the park.[108]
  • This historic bell, a gift to the City of Minden by the family of James Anderson Powell Sr. (1921-2016), of the former Blazer Construction Company,[109] previously hanged over the former Webster Parish Courthouse building from 1905 to 1951.
  • Historic Dorcheat Bayou between Minden and Dixie Inn is a popular fishing area.
  • Historic Minden Cemetery has graves as far back as 1843 and the American Civil War. Many Minden mayors are interred there.
  • Downtown Minden welcome sign on Main Street

References[edit]

  1. ^ "2016 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved Jul 2, 2017. 
  2. ^ a b "Population and Housing Unit Estimates". Retrieved June 9, 2017. 
  3. ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07. 
  4. ^ "2010 Census". quickfacts.census.gov. Archived from the original on January 7, 2012. Retrieved April 27, 2012. 
  5. ^ "Post Offices in Webster Parish, Louisiana". 
  6. ^ "Post Office Contract Given Final OK", Minden Press, July 6, 1959, p. 1.
  7. ^ Minden Press-Herald, July 18, 1966, p. 1.
  8. ^ "Camp Minden bunker explosion rocks region". Shreveport Times. Retrieved 2012-10-16. 
  9. ^ "Tonnes of explosives found in US town". 3 News NZ. December 4, 2012. 
  10. ^ "Cleanest City Trophy Presentation Set July 1", Minden Herald, June 25, 1959, p. 1.
  11. ^ John A. Agan (2014). Lost Minden. Columbia, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing Company. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-4671-1319-9. Retrieved March 9, 2015. 
  12. ^ Edwin Adams Davis (1999). Rivers and Bayous of Louisiana. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-4556-1130-0. Retrieved August 24, 2009. 
  13. ^ "Charles Hanson Veeder", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 2 (1988), pp. 809-810.
  14. ^ a b c David James, III, "Germantown: Once Thriving and Socialistic", Minden Press, July 7, 1958, pp. 1-2.
  15. ^ "Respect for the Past, Confidence in the Future", Webster Parish Centennial, 1871–1971, pp. 13-14
  16. ^ Brochure, Germantown Colony and Museum, 120 Museum Road, Minden, LA 71055
  17. ^ John D. Winters, with John James Kushma of University of Texas at Arlington (1963). The Civil War in Louisiana. LSU Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-8071-1725-5. 
  18. ^ Winters, pp. 319, 408
  19. ^ Winters, p. 382.
  20. ^ 1 p.m. News, KEEL Radio, Shreveport, Louisiana, February 2, 2011
  21. ^ Fannie Moore, "Barber Keeps Pace for More Than 50 Years", Minden Press-Herald, March 25, 1994, p. 1.
  22. ^ "1933 Cyclone Rips Through Minden, Killing 50, Injuring 400 More," Minden Press-Herald, January 1, 1973, p. 1, 50th anniversary of the event from May 1, 1933.
  23. ^ John A. Agan, "Captain Alfred Goodwill's Descendant (Murphy J. Foster, Jr.) Makes News", Minden Press-Herald, November 3, 1995
  24. ^ "Minden, La". triptrivia.com. Retrieved March 27, 2011. 
  25. ^ "Connell Fort Dies Saturday Night at His Residence Here: Was Great Civic Worker and Builder of This City," Webster Signal-Tribune, March 5, 1937, pp. 1, 6.
  26. ^ "Services for Happy Turner Thursday", Minden Press-Herald, September 14, 1988, p. 1.
  27. ^ a b c d e f FBI File 44-1444.
  28. ^ Bill Morrison. "Rockabilly Country News & Views". Retrieved September 27, 2010. 
  29. ^ "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. 2007-10-25. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
  30. ^ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015. 
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  32. ^ "Locker Plant Razed", Minden Press-Herald, March 31, 1982, p. 1
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External links[edit]

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