That bastard and his power hungry mob just stole your country, your money, and your health care.
As this is the 4th page and I haven't gotten much response or many readers, and I'm so royally pissed I can't think, I'm slacking this one. The DeRidder area is history rich and deserves your further investigation. Beauregard Parish is simply beautiful. Now's the time of year to go see for yourself.
Below are tweaked excerpts from the Beauregard Parish Site and information I got from reading Block, his link is down the way. For short histories featuring central, south and western Louisiana and eastern Texas, he can't be beat.
My notes from those sources. Repeat, these are my notes. I'm not taking the time to convert what may be straight quotes.
A side note on DeQuency, the town that is midway between Deridder and Lake Charles on the KCS western link. From it we see that the rails that connected Lake Charles to the DeQuency area was the CRV&S, so the KCS only had to get to DeQuency and then hook up to their ROW. (below)
In 1897 the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railway, now the Kansas City Southern, reached the point where its main line bent toward the southwest to Beaumont and the old Calcasieu River, Vernon & Shreveport tram line, now the Lake Charles branch of the K.C.S., joined the main line and the town of DeQuency was formed. DeQuency was at this time a pine forest, no timber having been cut except on the railroad right-of-way. Two small stores, two boarding houses, and four small dwellings constituted the village.
Back to DeRidder:
1897 - The Kansas City Southern arrives in DeRidder.
"The Kansas City railroad was built from Kansas City to Port Arthur and came right through Deridder about 1896. By 1898 the trains were running. The post-office was named Miersburg for the postmaster whose name was Miers. The railroad workers had used this spot for a camping place for the workmen. 160 acres of land was bought for the town site."
"Perhaps the most important thing to ever happen in Beauregard Parish was the arrival of the railroad in 1897. The first train line to serve DeRidder was the Pittsburgh & Gulf Railroad - later called the Kansas City Southern. A Dutch railroad financier, to honor his beautiful sister-in-law, Ella DeRidder, named the depot for her. Prior to that the little town was known as Schovall and DeKidder". (Beauregard Parish History)
There is a discrepancy in these dates, the above 1897 or the 1902 below. The Long group bought the Lake Charles mill in 1906, so, like I said, I'm not bearing down on this right now.
The first train line to serve DeRidder came in 1902, the Pittsburgh & Gulf Railroad, later to become part of the the Kansas City Southern (KCS) Railroad. The town was incorporated in 1903.
Deridder, Louisiana, which became the seat of the new Beauregard Parish in 1913, generally owed its existence as a thriving lumber market to the arrival of the Kansas City Southern rails in 1895. Deridder quickly took its name from an official of the Dutch-owned railroad, whose name translated into English as "the knight." By 1905, Deridder also became a rail junction when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad built an east-west line from Kirbyville, Texas, through Deridder to Oakdale
Here's all the info you need.
DeRidder 1904 to 1908 CLICK HERE This is a Block write so you know it's good.
You can probably credit Block for much of the info on this page. Please check out just some of his writes at the bottom of the page. It is amazing stuff.
I know this is a review:
"Long-Bell, a retail lumber dealer, was headquartered in Kansas City. It was seeking new sources of raw materials after the Michigan and Wisconsin forests were depleted. It was natural for them to follow the rails of Kansas City Southern right-of-way south of Shreveport. In February-March, 1906, a Long-Bell excursion train, carrying top officials and customers, inspected all the Long- Bell sawmill plants, Bon Ami, and Deridder on its way to buy the mill at Goosport/ Lake Charles".
"1906 - DeRidder's third railroad The Jasper and Eastern Railroad was constructed through town in 1906 and at this same time work started on the construction of the Lake Charles and Northern Railroad. This gave DeRidder three train lines". (Beauregard Parish History)
DeRidder was a mill town. When first starting this page I did a dissertation on mill towns. There were basically two types, those that paid in their own currency and the ones that used dollars. The one in DeRidder used greenbacks.
"Company towns", as they existed then, might be resented by some of today's independent-minded citizens. The company owned all the land, built the houses, the churches, the stores, and the schools. Workers were paid by the company, bought their clothes, food, and necessities at the company store, and paid their rent to the company. One such town was DeRidder, which had been just a station on the Kansas City Southern Railroad before the coming of the mill. The company built a new school, 125 houses, a store, a butcher shop, post office, hotel, and office building. The lumber from this project was milled at Bon Ami. Population was 3,600 in 1904." (Beauregard Parish History)
"The Hudson River Lumber Co. has a sawmill with a capacity of 150,000 feet daily, and it has a large acreage of standing timber... There are 625 square miles tributary to DeRidder in the way of trade. Seven large general stores bear witness to that... The fire of March 18 was not an unmitigated evil since fire brick buildings are now taking the places of the shacks that were. An elegant $10,000 school house with a corps of six teachers furnishes every opportunity in the educational line. The Masons and Odd Fellows each have fine halls and a large membership. Religious services are held each Sunday by the Methodists and Baptists...."
1912 - DeRidder houses from the sawmill days. (BP History)
"The house at 411 South Washington St. was once the quarters of the general manager of the Hudson River Lumber Company sawmill. The original staircase, window and door frames are made of "hand picked curly pine", a much appreciated wood of that day. The house at 405 Washington St. was once the quarters of a worker. It should also be noted that a goodly number of Bon Ami houses were moved to DeRidder. There is at least one on the east side of the 600 block of Royal Street".
A note on the economy:
"DeRidder was a thriving city through which four railroads operated ten passenger trains daily. The city boasted an electrical and water plant, cotton gin, two wholesale bakeries, steam laundry, bottling works and many other industries".
1941-1942 - The Louisiana Maneuvers"The Louisiana maneuvers came to much of the old Neutral Strip - involving about 500,000 men. It was the largest maneuvers in American history. It put an endless stream of convoys on our roads, horse cavalry in our streets, brawling on a few occasions in the downtown area of DeRidder and bivouacs on our farms. But it helped the economy. Except for the brawling, local people put up with the inconveniences with very little grumbling. The maneuvers were an essential part of war readiness".
Nov 28, 1941 - The first USO was in DeRidder (now the Civic Center)
"More than 500 USO's were built for our service men during World War II - some in foreign lands. The one in DeRidder was the first to open - and the one in Galveston opened 24 hours later. It is said that 89,000 soldiers visited the DeRidder USO - 15,000 had showers there and 27,000 saw movies there".
More on the buildings:
"Oct 4, 1981 - Forty-two DeRidder buildings put on National Register
The old jail was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. At end of the month, the commercial district of DeRidder was placed on the National Register 42 buildings in all".
"The Sante Fe is on the eve of building through here, the terminal being Kirbyville, Texas, and Alexandria, with a tap running to Leesville and south to Carson... An ice plant of large capacity is one of the industries. Electric light has been put in use in part of the town, and in the near future will be in general use. There is a bank here, which is a solid institution....
"The future of this town is assured, and that fact is appreciated by outsiders who are coming in daily with a view to investment... During the month of October (1904), 280 cars of lumber were shipped out. Considerable cotton came in today. The prices range from 9 to 10 cents a pound... The Nelson hotel is deservedly popular with the traveling public...." And on and on.
I rode to where you see office. The mill was bought by the IP Corp.
It is located on Post Plant Rd..jpg)
.jpg)
I suspect this was the office.
Below is where you see "crossec" This is the Santa Fe, which had come from Oakdale..jpg)
Following the J&E had been a lot of fun. It was also a beautiful trip..jpg)
On the way you can see where the Kansas City Southern,
coming from Leesville and going to Dequency, crossed the Jasper & Eastern
(Santa Fe from Oakdale/Kirbyville, TX).jpg)
That's the cross track. The J&E enters a business and it's end..jpg)
The KCS was getting a sprucing up..jpg)
There it goes off to Merryville and Kirbyville..jpg)
Here's the KCS Depot..jpg)
At the station the two railroad to Lake Charles came together.
Here's looking toward DeQuency..jpg)
Here's the chrome caboose at the station. These cabooses,
I think, are from the Missouri Pacific.
They look that way, anyway..jpg)
Deridder still retains the rail connection..jpg)
Looking north.
The two tracks came from DeQuency, on the left.The rails to
the right came from Longville. Now they only go to that chemical plant..jpg)
Looking south, Right went to DeQuency, left were to Longville and Lake
Charles down the Lake Charles and Northern Railroad..jpg)
This building had "Calcasieu......" written on the side.I imagined
it to say " Calcasieu Lumber", but I'm a romantic..jpg)
.jpg)
I saw Bundick Lake on the GPS. I headed home that way..jpg)
That's it. I'm out of here.