Minden, Louisiana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The small city of Minden is the parish seat of Webster Parish, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been remarkably stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census.
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[edit] Minden historical highlights
Minden was established in 1836 by Charles H. Veeder. He named it for the town of Minden, Germany. Veeder left Minden during the California Gold Rush and spent the rest of his life practicing law in Bakersfield, California.
In the middle 1840s, the Minden First Baptist Church was pastored by George Washington Baines, the maternal great-grandfather of future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Baines was a North Carolina native who came to Louisiana from Alabama and Arkansas and thereafter spent the second half of his life in Texas, where he pastored other Baptist churches. In 1969, Baines was honored at the 125th anniversary of the First Baptist Church. Former President Johnson came to the services. The current First Baptist pastor is Wayne L. DuBose, a native of Mobile County, Alabama.
During the Civil War, a large Confederate encampment was located just east of Minden. It housed about 15,000 Confederate soldiers. The town served as a supply depot for the Confederate Army. Some thirty Confederate soldiers who died in the Battle of Mansfield and the battle of Pleasant Hill are buried in the Old Minden Cemetery.
Minden recorded the state's all-time coldest temperature, minus-16 degrees, on February 13, 1899, during the height of the Great Blizzard.
During the Great Depression, one of the two Minden banks failed, and a fire destroyed a major section of the downtown area in 1931.
On May 1, 1933, a tornado destroyed some 20 percent of the residences in Minden.
The artist Ben Earl Looney was born in Yellow Pine in south Webster Parish and graduated from Minden High School in 1923. He taught art throughout the United States in a career from the 1920s until his death in Lafayette in 1981.
[edit] Minden's first casualty of the Iraq War
Sergeant Joshua Barrett Madden (born May 24, 1985) became the first Minden fatality in the Iraq War on December 6, 2006, when a terrorist bomb exploded. Four other members of his unit also perished. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division Wolfhounds.
Madden, the son of two prominent Webster Parish families, was buried with full military honors on December 16. People held flags with hands over their hearts or solemnly saluted as they lined the Lewisville Road north from the First Baptist Church to Gardens of Memory Memorial Park to pay their respects.
The sergeant, a 2003 graduate of Minden High School, was reared in Sibley. He is survived by his childhood sweetheart and widow, the former Aimee Danielle "Dani" Smock of Athens (married 2005); three-month old son Jaxon Levi Madden; his parents, Jerry Madden and Cindy Richardson Madden; one sister, and two brothers. He was a maternal grandson of the late Webster Parish Coroner Dr. Thomas A. Richardson.
[edit] Vietnam War deaths
Minden lost ten servicemen in the Vietnam War:
(1) Marine Lance Corporal George Allen Branch (September 26, 1947 - August 18, 1968)
(2) Army Captain Allen Ross Culpepper (July 21, 1944 - May 18, 1969)
(3) Marine Corporal Paul Douglas Dukes (August 13, 1950 - August 31, 1969)
(4) Marines Lance Corporal David Allen Floyd (March 4, 1948 - March 1, 1969)
(5) Army PFC Billy Ray Foster (December 6, 1943 - June 15, 1966)
(6) Army Specialist 4 James Ronald Garcia (December 20, 1943 - June 17, 1967)
(7) Marines First Lieutenant David Lawrence Gloer (September 23, 1942 - July 21, 1968)
(8) Army Staff Sgt. James Wood Megehee (April 22, 1940 - September 7, 1969)
(9) Army PFC Phillip Murry Myles (November 24, 1946 - July 27, 1967
(10) Marines Lance Corporal Willie Purfoy Seamster (January 8, 1949 - June 15, 1968) http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/la-alpha.html
[edit] Korean War Deaths
Webster Parish lost eight Army servicemen in the Korean War:
Sergeant Jimmie R. Campbell, died while captured on May 19, 1951
Sgt. Douglas Carpenter, killed in action on July 21, 1950
PFC Everle Cox, killed in action on November 20, 1951
Private Clyde W. Elkins, killed in action on August 20, 1951
PFC Martin L. Hicks, killed in action on September 19, 1951
Pvt. Sherlyn Holloway, killed in action on July 31, 1950
Corporal Dennis M. Jones, killed in action on January 15, 1953
PFC Thomas O. Moore, Jr., killed on November 5, 1950
[edit] Minden politicians
Minden has produced a governor, the conservative Democrat Robert F. Kennon, who served from 1952-1956.
Three Democrats with ties to Minden served in the United States House of Representatives during the twentieth century. John T. Watkins of Minden was unseated in the 1920 Democratic congressional primary by John N. Sandlin, also of Minden. Sandlin gave up the House seat to run unsuccessfully in 1936 for the U.S. Senate, with the victor in that contest being the longterm Senator Allen J. Ellender of Houma in Terrebonne Parish. A 1959 Minden High School graduate, Thomas Jerald "Jerry" Huckaby, served in Congress from 1977-1993. He represented the Fifth Congressional District, which did not include either Minden or Webster Parish.
Minden was also the home of a former Democratic lieutenant governor, Coleman Lindsay, who served briefly from 1939-1940, under Earl Kemp Long.
The Drew family produced generations of political leaders in Minden, most recently Court of Appeals Judge Harmon Drew, Jr. (born 1946), a Democrat. His father, R. Harmon Drew, Sr. (1917-1995), was a municipal judge and a Democratic state representative.
In 1966, Minden became one of the first two cities in Louisiana to elect a Republican as mayor. Tom Colten (1922-2004) served from 1966-1974, and went on to head the Department of Transportation and Development under three governors of both parties. The city, however, is otherwise heavily Democratic. The other Louisiana community which in 1966 elected a Republican mayor (Jack L. Breaux, Sr.) was Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Another Minden Republican, Paul Aaron Brown (1932-1996), was elected mayor in 1989 but served only a year in the office. He was succeeded in 1990 by current Democratic Mayor Billy Henry "Bill" Robertson (born 1938).
Since 1992, Minden and Webster Parish have been represented in the Louisiana House by a member of the Doerge family. Democrat Everett Doerge, a retired educator, held the seat until his death in 1998, when his widow, Jean M. Doerge, also a former educator, a Democrat, and a native of Natchitoches Parish, won the special election as his successor. She has since been reelected twice without opposition.
[edit] Sports figures
Minden has also produced several sports stars. David Allen Lee (born 1943) is a retired industrial executive in Bossier City in Bossier Parish who holds National Football League punting records during his tenure with the former Baltimore Colts from 1966-1978. Prior to his professional duties, Lee played for Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish.
Charles T. "Charlie" Hennigan (born 1935), originally from Bienville Parish, graduated from Minden High School in 1953 and played for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches before joining the newly-created Houston Oilers in 1960.
Fred Haynes (1946-2006), a 1964 Minden High School graduate, became a champion college quarterback at LSU, where he was affectionately known as the "Littlest Tiger" because of his modest physical size.
Larry Clinton Brewer (born 1948), a 1966 graduate of Minden High School, played successfully for Louisiana Tech and joined the Atlanta Falcons after college graduation but was unable to meet the commitment because of an injury. Brewer became a certified public accountant and worked in hospital management until his death of a drowning accident in 2003 while on a family vacation in Hawaii. He was living in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, near Tulsa at the time of the tragedy.
[edit] Hank Williams married in Minden
Country singing icon 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 married Williams. Thereafter, Billie Jean married another singing giant, Johnny Horton. Horton died in 1960 and is buried in Hillcrest Cemetery east of Bossier City. [1]
[edit] Geography
Minden is located at (32.616761, -93.283296)GR1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 31.0 km² (12.0 mi²). 30.8 km² (11.9 mi²) of it is land and 0.2 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (0.75%) is water.
[edit] Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 13,027 people, 5,166 households, and 3,430 families residing in the city. The population density was 423.0/km² (1,095.2/mi²). There were 5,795 housing units at an average density of 188.2/km² (487.2/mi²). 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 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. 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.
[edit] External links
- Minden-South Webster Chamber of Commerce
- Minden Press-Herald (local newspaper)
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
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(Shreveport/Bossier City Metro) History | Geography | Politics | Economy | Education | Culture | Transportation | Shreveporters |
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