Mailing in the New Year

Happy New Year! To round out the end of 2025, let’s take a look at one of the oldest institutions in Bossier Parish: the Post Office. The Post Offices in the United States are managed by the United States Postal Service, under the direction of the executive branch of the United States government. Unlike many agencies, however, the USPS does not report to a particular cabinet secretary, instead functioning as an independent agency under the Postmaster General. The first Postmaster General was American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin in July of 1775. Most Post Offices have their own Postmas... Read Full Blog

Bossier Gains New Business Advocate After World War II

In the late 1940s, as the Town of Bossier City grew in population – it would officially become a city in 1951 due to this growth – Bossier civic leaders felt there was a need for an organization to help promote the town. If it was to continue prospering, Bossier needed a new advocate. Enter the Bossier Chamber of Commerce.

Calls for the formation of the chamber began in earnest in April 1947. Local realtor and civic leader Arthur Ray Teague spoke before representatives from clubs such as the Lions, Optimists, Kiwanis, Home Demonstration and others, making the case. An article in The S... Read Full Blog

SAM ZEIGLER JR: BUILDING UP THE NAVY FOR SEA AND AIR. PART 2, AIR

Bossier’s almost-native son Samuel J. “Sam” Zeigler Jr.’s extraordinary naval career allowed him to be at the helm for critical developments in the now-200-year-old military service. In last week’s part I, Samuel J. Zeigler, Jr., “Sea,” we followed him from north Bossier Parish and Shreveport to LSU and the United States Naval Academy where he was among the top graduates in 1912. We saw him next complete graduate training and serve as a naval architect and engineer plus gain a graduate business degree at Harvard. He served in leadership posts in stateside shipyards in the midst of the trans... Read Full Blog

SAM ZEIGLER JR: BUILDING UP THE NAVY FOR SEA AND AIR. PART 1, SEA

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th, or semiquincentennial, birthday. A branch of the United States military, however, has already sailed past that milestone. On October 13, 2025, the U.S. Navy hit the big 2-5-0. That date commemorates when the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1775, and authorized a purchase of two merchant ships to convert to warships for its fight against the Naval superpower, Great Britian.

Samuel Jacob Zeigler, Jr., or Sam Zeigler, as he was known, was born in Bordeaux, South Carolina on July 29, 1889, to Samuel J. Zeigler Sr... Read Full Blog

Bossier Parish Police Jury – Now and Then

In Bossier Parish, the highest local authority is the Bossier Parish Police Jury (BPPJ), administrating the parish from the Parish Courthouse in Benton. For many people, local government has become something abstract and nebulous, lost in the sea of attention paid towards national affairs. However, local governments, like the BPPJ, will affect you more in your day-to-day life than anything on the national scale. In Louisiana, Police Juries hold similar authority to County Commissions in other states. Originally founded via a state legislative act in 1811, the powers of police juries were ex... Read Full Blog

Handmade in Bossier, 75 Years Ago: Flags of the United Nations

“United Nations Flags Made Here” said the caption in the Planters Press newspaper of Bossier City, La. above a photo of Mrs. W. P. Belcher holding the United Nations emblem and Mrs. W.E. Richie with a standard flag-sized cloth laying on the table before her. No, a new factory didn’t open up, though the two factories that did exist in the U.S. for making the flags were already cranking them out as fast they could in the Fall of 1950. Taking up the slack for the increased demand for U.N. flags caused by the onset of the Korean War and the United Nations Day of late October, were women and gir... Read Full Blog

Understanding Hoopla Changes

Thanks to the growing popularity of Hoopla, Bossier Parish Libraries has determined the need to make the following changes effective January 1, 2026.

Limit of 10 borrows per month per cardholderCollective daily borrow limit (or budget cap)

What does this mean?
When using Hoopla, you may see this message, "The collective daily borrow limit set by your library has been reached and will reset at midnight. Please browse and add titles to favorites so you can easily access them after midnight."
Don't worry! It just means we've hit our budget for the day for all patrons. Any titles you... Read Full Blog

Fun with Words, North Louisiana-Style

It’s November, and Thanksgiving, and the holiday season, is just around the corner. If you’re lucky, you may be spending extra time with family and relatives, perhaps in multiple generations. Some inter-generational differences can cause friction, while others are cause for fascination, or at least gentle amusement. The different words and phrases used by folks of different generations, or even different geographic areas, can be an example of the latter.

Recently, I’d been feeling “under the weather.” A coworker asked if I’d been “feeling peaky” then asked if I knew what that mean... Read Full Blog

Haughton High Mascot Has Changed Through the Years

Buccaneers, Vikings, Panthers, Bearkats, Tigers, and Lions, these fearsome high school mascots can all be found in Bossier Parish. And each has remained the same through the years, except for one. For Haughton High School’s mascot, the image of a swashbuckling pirate hasn’t always been the case.

Haughton High was established in 1886 in a small, two-room building with a handful of students, and today has an enrollment of approximately 1,400. Much has changed on the campus through the years, including its mascot. While conducting some research recently on another subject, I came acr... Read Full Blog

The Lumberjack Ghost: A Spectral Story of Real Dangers

Local legends abound in nearly every American town. Investigating the origins of some of these scary stories often reveal actual historical happenings. Let’s explore the history that could be behind a ghost story from the Plain Dealing area in north Bossier Parish about a lumberjack ghost who appears with large boots and carries an axe.

Timber has been a thriving economic activity here since the last two decades of the nineteenth century, when Northern forests had largely been over-harvested, and the untouched forests here became more accessible after the clearings of the Great Ra... Read Full Blog

A Glimpse at the State Fairs of Old

 It’s October, which means that it’s Louisiana State Fair season. The fair, which began in 1906, will be coming to the Shreveport-Bossier area October 30th, and will last until the 16th of November. Throughout its lifespan, it has had numerous attractions, from rides, to events, and more. Take a ride through the past, with images and the following article. What follows is a showcase of the attractions in 1936, some eighty-nine years ago, as seen in the September 24, 1936 edition of The Bossier Banner.

 

1936 STATE FAIR ATTRACTIONS

The Bossier Banner described the... Read Full Blog

Bossier High Band Impressive at Sugar Bowl

The 1960 Sugar Bowl featured a New Year’s Day matchup of Southeastern Conference rivals LSU and Ole Miss. The second-ranked Rebels were eager to avenge a 7 – 3 loss to the third ranked Tigers that occurred on Halloween night following an 89-yard punt return for a touchdown by LSU star halfback Billy Cannon. For the Bossier High School marching band, the bowl provided not only a chance to see top college teams in action, but also offered the opportunity to step onto a national stage.

Three months earlier, Bossier High had welcomed a special visitor to see the band perform. According to... Read Full Blog

Tri-State Oil Tool Company - A Bossier Titan

There was once a company of international prominence headquartered right here in Bossier City, Louisiana. Tri-State Oil Tool Industries Inc., or Tri-State Oil Tool Company, was once the one of the largest employers here in Bossier Parish, and whose wide-reaching influence would see a dozen international locations and nearly three dozen local. What got them there, and where did they go?

Tri-State Oil Tool got its start right here in Bossier City just under sixty years ago, in December of 1945, and was founded by Gary H. Burnham Tri-State Oil Tool. Mister Burnham was then quickly jo... Read Full Blog

A Lake Bistineau Fishing Story for National Hunting and Fishing Day

September 27 is National Hunting and Fishing Day, an event celebrated by all 50 states every year on the fourth Saturday in September. It was established in 1972 when Congress passed two bills to have a day to celebrate the conservation contributions of U.S. hunters and anglers. It seems a perfect time to share a fun fishing story (with some hunting thrown in, too) brought to me by a reader of this column, JoAnne McDonald.

 

Mrs. McDonald and her late husband Jerry had a house in Bossier Parish with a private pond near Lake Bistineau. It was highlighted in The Shrevepor... Read Full Blog

Combat Skyspot in SE Asia: The B-52s On-the-Ground Advantage

Operational since December of 1954, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft and its distinctive hulking silhouette are familiar, over 70 years Advantage, to anyone living near North Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base. When the B-52 entered service, the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) intended it for use in the “Cold War” to deter the expanding and modernizing military of the Soviet Union and its increasing nuclear capabilities. In the 1960s, projects to replace the B-52 with a new bomber had been aborted or scrapped after disappointing results. With the escalating situation in Sou... Read Full Blog