Dan Lemoine
Current resident of Gulf Shores, Alabama
My memories of Alexandria divide rather neatly into segments. I was born in 1928 so my first memories are of the depression era in the early thirties followed by my elementary school years in the late thirties. Then came the early forties with the war and high school. I moved to Monroe in 1953 after the post-war years.
The Early Thirties
In the early thirties during the Great Depression, Alexandria was a sleepy little agricultural center with the smaller and sleepier town of Pineville just across Red River. Old folks said sometimes the river practically dried up and you could walk to Pineville. I personally recall it looking like a wide creek on a couple of occasions. Did you know that the river starts as a creek in Palo Duro Canyon just south of Amarillo, Texas? About 1934 the downtown traffic bridge was supplemented by a new state-of-the-art bridge out by the forts. It was part of a new highway around Pineville that went from the Boyce highway to Kingsville. The forts and Sandy Canyon were now accessible and became popular picnic spots.
Alexandria's biggest claim to fame was that we had no cemeteries; they were all in Pineville. Incidentally, that is where the mental institutions were also. Not that Alex had that much going for it either. There was the cotton gin, the cotton seed mill and of course the sawmill, the one that used to blow their whistle at seven o'clock in the morning so you could set your clock. Holsum and Tendercrust seemed to be the dominant bakeries. Our neighbor Mr. Diniat, produced Pan-Dandy bread for a short time, but it just disappeared. The Paramount and the Saenger were our first two theaters.
Transportation and industry
Interurban Bus Lines had a terminal on lower Third Street but I have no idea as to what area they served. I believe they were eventually taken over by Trailways Bus Lines. The railroads were the preferred means of travel since the highways out of town were mostly gravel We had the Kansas City Southern, the Missouri Pacific, the Texas Pacific, and the Louisville and Nashville railroads. A roundhouse and large rail yard on the southern end of town serviced some or all of these lines. A roundhouse was where they would run the steam locomotive on to a turntable and turn it around to head it in the opposite direction. There were no air conditioned passenger trains back then. Instead, the passenger cars had large compartments underneath the cars that men would load up with full size blocks of ice. Air blowing over the ice was then circulated into the passenger compartment. Neat, huh?
There was not much in the way of industry unless you include Carbo's foundry. They were closed on weekends and sometimes curious young boys would sneak in through the gap in their massive shop doors. We would wander around gawking at the machinery and furnaces but being very careful not to touch anything. Parked on their back lot were two huge steam driven tractors which we would climb on and pretend to operate. This adventure usually culminated in a switching when our parents caught us.
A grass field with a small shack out past the end of town on lower Third Street passed as an airport. About 1933 my dad took me to watch some barnstormers performing aerobatics and giving rides. The highlight of the day occurred when a man parachuted out of an old biplane. Wow, what a thrill! Seventy years later, I can still vividly recall that sight. That was the beginning of my fascination with flying.
Friday nights in the early thirties meant going to Wolf's grocery on the corner of Jackson and Sixth streets to purchase next week's supply of necessities. It was an early version of a supermarket, about the size of a present day Wal-Mart toy department. On one such excursion about 1933, our attention was diverted to a lady making something she called mayonnaise which she invited folks to sample on a cracker. Could this be when mayonnaise first came into being? I had never heard of it before. Curiously, grocery bags back then were super sized, about thirty inches tall and extra heavy.
Neighborhoods...and dirt streets
Neighborhoods seemed to be much more compact with an abundance of children to play with. With no such thing as organized sports for kids, we made our own entertainment. Manicured lawns were not the order of the day so it was fairly easy to find a bit of bare ground under some shade tree. That provided a great site for a game of hop scotch, roly poly, mumbly peg, or territory. Kick the can, stick ball, dodge ball, cowboys and Indians, and hide and seek were also favorites. Find an old tennis ball and a broom stick and you were all set for pickup game of baseball. Didn't have television or video games, but sitting in the porch swing vying to be the first to name the make of the occasional passing vehicle was loads of fun.
I lived on Louisiana Avenue and most of the streets in our neighborhood were unpaved until the mid to late thirties; however, they all had paved sidewalks. Great for skates, scooters, wagons, and home built soap box racers. An old skate, a two by four, and a wooden apple crate combined with some imagination could be converted into a neat racer. No, I don't know where they got that name because soap didn't come in wooden boxes. I forgot to mention: they didn't work unless you conned someone into pushing you!
Periodically, a water wagon pulled by two mules would come by and wet down the streets to keep the dust down. The highlight of a summer day was standing just close enough to the edge of the street to have the wagon spray your bare feet as it went by. How I envied the driver sitting way up on top of this huge tank and working those foot pedals to regulate the flow of water!. Occasionally a street grader pulled by a small tractor would honor us with its presence and smooth out the gravel street. The man operating the grader stood on a small step on the rear end and manipulated all sorts of large wheels and levers to make the contraption function. Living on a gravel street was a definite plus as it provided young boys with an abundance of ammunition for their slingshots.
The city fathers must not have had access to a compass when they named the schools. The one in the dead center of town was called West End and the one in the same block with the cathedral was called Central. No matter, my school was named Rosenthal Grammar School and it was on the far west end of town. Almost every one walked to school, and I even walked home for lunch. There weren't that many cars in the early thirties; however, sometime about the third grade, we did have quite a bit of excitement. At lunch time one day, Emma Francis Jones was run over by a car! Fortunately, the car was high slung and Emma was low slung so it just mostly passed over her. Her head was skinned and minus a patch of blonde hair for awhile but no serious injuries. She only got to miss a half day of school, but she did attain some degree of notoriety since not many kids could claim to have ever been run over by a car.
Schools must have been more efficient in those days because ours was staffed with only the principal, a teacher for each grade, and a janitor. No counselors, administrators, school nurses, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, or whatever. Still, with few exceptions, everyone learned the three R's --- or else. No such thing as social promotions, you either passed or you failed, period. Did I say a janitor? Well, only one for a while. Mr. Mayeaux was quite elderly and sometimes he would either nap or just forget to perform one of his most important duties, ringing the bell to start or end school. His son was finally employed to be his assistant until he retired.
I have often fantasized how interesting it would be to drop a present day grade school class into a mid-thirties Rosenthal classroom. Uncontested and absolute strict discipline was the order of the day. Don't be caught talking, chewing gum, dropping paper on the floor, or leaving your desk without permission. Don't even think about talking back to a teacher. Just the threat of being sent to the principal, Mr. Tuber, was enough to ruin your day. Everyone knew he kept a razor strop (a wide belt used for sharpening straight razors) hanging in his office to use on the back side of anyone needing a little redirection. He really was a kindly old gentleman and in seven years there were only two occasions were it was rumored that he had wielded his strop on some rowdy boy. Back then if you did happen to be punished at school, it was in your best interest to avoid having your parents know about it because that was when the fur would really fly.
You knew you had reached a higher plateau when you were promoted to a classroom where your desk top had a peculiar little hole in the upper right hand corner. The teacher would soon entrust you with a funny little bottle that had a pointed rubber stopper. She filled your bottle from a large bottle of ink she kept in her desk and you commenced experiencing the joy of writing with a pen and ink. You did ovals and push pulls until you were blue in the face. You wrote every thing in "longhand", which is better known as cursive today. After an infinite number of push pulls and ovals, the pen point sort of metamorphosed into a spear that would stick up in the wooden floor if is was dropped just right. As this was not on the approved list of amusements, invariably the teacher who happened to have uncanny vision invited you to stand at the blackboard for awhile with your nose stuck in a chalk circle.
Thursday afternoons were special if you were lucky enough to have a nickel. That's when a fellow driving a panel truck would convert the school auditorium into a makeshift movie theater. The main feature was always a suspense filled serial preceded by one or two cartoons. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, etc. always got into a terrible jam at the end of each segment and you had to wait a week to see if they managed to survive. If you didn't have a nickel your consolation was you got out of school a half hour early.
The Thirties...the second half
The second half of the thirties brought some improvement in the economy. The city undertook an extensive street paving program and even replaced the old city buses that had been in service since the demise of the streetcars. The old busses had the engine sticking out front, similar to what you see in old movies and springs undoubtedly must have been optional equipment. The modern new busses were blunt nosed with the engine along side the driver and they came already equipped with springs. Production of civilian vehicles ceased during the war years so these busses really got a workout. Sometimes they were so packed you had to struggle to get on and struggle equally hard to get off. For the most part, they provided many people with a very dependable source of transportation. Their routes, along with transfers, were cleverly designed so as to make most of the town accessible by bus. It cost a nickel to ride unless you were going to school, in which case tokens were two for a nickel.
About 1939, the telephone company moved into their new office on Murray Street and introduced the dial telephone. Previously, the "number please" operators had been located on Second Street across from the city hall. The new telephone numbers were all four digits. Most residential telephones were still on some sort of party line with two, four, or eight other subscribers.
Alexandria owned its electrical system and generated its electricity at the "power house" on the corner of Fourth and Monroe Streets. It was a strange mysterious building with a lot of whirring machinery. When it was modernized in the late thirties, we marveled at the really tall smokestack that joined the Guaranty Bank and the water standpipe in dominating the skyline. The water standpipe was located on Lee Street and was responsible for producing our water pressure. In the early thirties whenever there was a fire, water pressure in the system was increased to aid the firemen, and every one voluntarily refrained from using water while they fought the fire.
A much anticipated event was Ringling Brothers Circus' annual visit. The circus had its own train that usually arrived in the middle of the night. They then began a pre-dawn procession of all their equipment and animals to the show site. For many years they would set up their tents in a vacant field that later became Crawford Addition, with its Midway Avenue, and accessed by Alma Street. Part of their route to the show site was down Chester Street, and just two blocks behind my house. Usually, my cousin would come to spend the night and my mom would wake us about four AM and we would hurry down to Chester to watch the elephants pulling circus wagons. We would speculate what was inside of each wagon, and if you listened carefully, you could hear a lion roar or maybe a gorilla pounding his chest. How exciting! More often than not, it had rained and the dirt street became an absolute quagmire for several days.
If you were old enough and big enough, you could help feed and water the animals and earn yourself a free pass. Alas, I was neither old or big enough so I could only watch from a distance. One memorable year, for the much publicized main attraction, they were going to shoot a daredevil human cannonball out of a cannon. I did manage to somehow finagle my way to see this spectacle. What a magnificent cannon - it was all silver and mounted on a big truck. I had occasion several years ago to visit the Ringling Brothers museum in Florida, and lo and behold, there was the very same cannon! Looked a lot different. The cannon had shrunk and both it and the truck looked rather down in the mouth.
Staying cool in the summertime
During the summer, there were privately-owned parks outside of town. Shady Nook, Castor Plunge, and Magnolia Springs were very rustic swimming holes with equally rustic facilities. Magnolia Springs had the absolute coldest water of any place around. You would turn blue even in the middle of summer. You could rent one of their cabins and stay the week if you had the where-with-all. The cabins were just that, bare bones cabins mostly screened in with wooden bunk beds.
We survived summers with almost no air conditioning until the late thirties. Wellans and the Paramount Theater were among the first to be cooled. Who can forget the Rex Theater which advertised "Air Cooled"? That was accomplished via a large air duct in the side of the building where a system of nozzles would spray a fine mist of water to cool the air blown into the theater. It's hard to forget the moldy smell the minute you entered the theater but it was a might cooler than outdoors.
World War II
Did I say a sleepy little town? That was the thirties, before the war. The forties and the war ushered in all sorts of changes. It was an exciting time and, to top it all, I took that giant step upward to Bolton High School. I rode my bike to school along with almost every one else. There was a long shed on the school ground for parking bicycles. Only a handful of students had cars. The patriotic fervor that swept the country after 9/11 didn't hold a candle to the wave of patriotism that engulfed our lives after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Suddenly there was a shortage of almost everything and a system of rationing was inaugurated. Each family was issued ration books with stamps good for certain items such as gasoline, tires, meat, and sugar.
Young men were being drafted, thus depleting the workforce and making all sorts of jobs available. My cousin and I worked after school in the cake department of Holsum Bakery on Bolton Avenue. They somehow continued to make pastries even though sugar was in short supply. Meringue pies were in great demand and only made on Sunday mornings. Since the regular employees were off, we part timers were pressed into service to assist the Sunday morning baker. Unfortunately, we were never totally successful in mastering the art of pie making. Invariably, one of them would wind up too grotesque to sell. Who says two young boys and a baker can't eat a whole pie by themselves? A similar occurrence was the night before Thanksgiving in 1942. One of the army camps did not have the facilities to bake all of their turkeys so they sent some over to be baked in the large bread ovens. Unfortunately one turkey just fell to pieces when it was retrieved from the oven and had to be disposed of on the spot. Having an abundance of hot bread fresh out of the oven didn't hurt either!
They built Camp Livingston, Camp Claiborne, Esler Field, England Air Force Base, Pollock Air Base, and reactivated Camp Beauregard, all within a thirty mile radius of town. A new four lane loop named MacArthur Drive was constructed through what was farms and pastures on the outskirts of town. Gardner highway became a straight arrow paved highway, rumored to be an emergency airplane runway. The town was suddenly overwhelmed with the large number of soldiers that came flooding in. We accommodated them as best we could and there were surprisingly few problems. Some of their children enrolled in our schools and we soon had them saying "you all" instead of "youse". The military conducted massive maneuvers around and through town. It was exciting to wake up in the middle of the night and watch General Patton's tanks rumbling down the street. The town only extended a few blocks past Chester Street and the outskirts were the favorite places for them to set up their 155 millimeter cannon and anti-aircraft installations. If you were persistent enough, the soldiers would let you peek through their range finders and climb all over the cannons. Occasionally, opposing forces would engage in a battle and we would fill our pockets with spent blank rifle cartridges.
With all of the air bases in the area, it was a common occurrence to see B-17 bombers in formation as well as many other military aircraft. Our own little airport on Lower Third Street was by now sporting a hanger and a full-time flying instructor. It was an interesting place to hang out with friends who shared my interest in flying. Piper J-3 Cubs were popular at that time and a real hoot to fly since one side could be folded down and open. Since their parents are probably deceased by now, it is probably okay to tell the tale about Clifford P. and Bill T. buzzing a herd of cows in a Cub. Seems they hit a cow and broke half of a wheel strut. They came back and circled the airport with the wheel askew, thoroughly upsetting Gordon Baker who owned the airplane and operated the airport. He grabbed a length of rope and when they made a low pass, he was able to throw the rope into the open side of the Cub. They somehow managed to secure the wheel well enough to make an uneventful landing. I am pretty positive if it had been an option, they would have preferred to fly to Mexico rather than face the chewing out that ensued!
Post-war Alexandria
With the war's end and the closing of the bases, things settled down quite a bit, but never to revert back to the pre-war years. We now had three additional theaters: the Joy, Rex, and Don. Gardner highway made Valentine Lake much more accessible and it became a popular meeting place. Being in the late teens now made some of the more adult watering holes accessible to my generation. The Silver Moon out past Willow Glen, the Rendezvous on Second St. across from city hall, the Blue Moon in Bunkie, the Penguin Club on Lee St. extension, the American Legion home in the old plantation house, and of course that unforgettable nightclub in Ransville (sorry, I seem to have forgotten its name). The most popular drive-ins were Parkview and Caps. One especially unforgettable night, my date and I stopped at Parkview after a movie for a soda while we listened to the radio. It had been and was still raining and the parking lot was one big mud hole. When we started to leave, it became obvious that a front tire was flat as a fritter. Out in the rain and the mud, I was not a happy camper when a middle aged lady in the car next to us rolled down her window and said "Do you have flat?". I replied "No m'am, I always change the tires before I leave for home".
The Murray Street Bridge
The bridge to Pineville at the end of Murray Street deserves some recognition. No doubt it was originally only intended to be a pedestrian bridge with its nice wide walkways on either side. However, with the advent of the automobile, they must have decided to add one lane in the middle for those new fangle contraptions. On opening day everyone wanted to try out the new bridge but since it was one way, all of the autos wound up in Pineville with no way to get back. Then they had no choice but to make it two extremely narrow lanes. It was floored with four steel strips which appeared to have been polished to insure negative traction, especially after a light rain. A teenager's first encounter with the bridge was always a real adventure. First of all, you had to assault the uncommonly steep grade to get over the levee next to Rapides Bank. Most cars were manual shift and underpowered so it was desirable to get a running start in low gear and hope the fellow in front of you didn't stall. Once you had successfully scaled the levee and breathed a sigh of relief, the tiny opening of the bridge loomed into view and you prayed that there would not be any oncoming traffic. No such luck. Closest I ever came to playing the game of chicken. By the time you reached Pineville, your knuckles were stark white and the steering wheel was drenched with sweat. This bridge was so narrow that a respected city policeman while accompanying some children on a bus traversing the bridge, pointed at something out of the window and lost his right arm.
MacArthur Drive Airport...where I learned to fly
Gordon Baker acquired a strip of land on the west side of MacArthur Drive (where Super-One supermarket is now) and transformed it into an airport. I made my first solo flight from that grass pasture. The thrill of winning the lottery would pale compared to that moment when your instructor climbs out of the airplane and says "OK, you take it around this time". With your heart in your throat, you almost say "Are you sure?" But macho pride takes over and you shove the throttle forward, awakening all sixty-five horses of that powerful engine. Bumpity, bumpity down that grass field until you finally pull back on the stick and you are flying -- all alone, wow! Afterwards, there is the ritual where by your friends cut off your shirt tail and tack it to the hanger wall with your name and date. A couple of years later, I purchased a one-sixth interest in Aeronca NC-84541 for $50.00, the same airplane I soloed in. Nice little airplane except for its nasty habit of leaking high octane gasoline in your lap while you were taxiing. Sammy Kohara is the only one of the other five partners whose name I recall.
Closing
Except for Camp Beauregard, all of the army camps and air bases closed soon after the end of the war. England Air Force based emerged again in the 1950s as a significant military post. The economy suffered briefly, but the war years had produced a pent-up demand for civilian goods and services. Soon the city began to grow and prosper, never again to return to that sleepy little town that now exists only in the memory of a diminishing number senior citizens. But then that's progress!
