Looking back to Bogalusa's beginning

How long has it been since you’ve heard Bogalusa called “The Magic City’? How long has it been since it seemed like a magic city?

There are those who remember the Bogalusa of old, back when Bogalusa was the place to go in Washington Parish. If you ask some of Bogalusa’s older residents, they’ll tell you that Bogalusa richly deserved the designation “The Magic City” back when they were young and so was the town.

According to some  histories of the time, by the early 1950s, the Bogalusa metropolitan area was flourishing, with more than 20,000 people. There wasn’t a lot of industry in the town, but the paper mill was large enough to employ a large segment of the town’s population. There was a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a large number of medium and small businesses. There was even a bowling alley.

Because the mill was so successful back then, the town and its residents thrived. If someone was unemployed in the ‘50s it was usually by choice, not because a job wasn’t available.

In retrospect, Bogalusa seemed to be Louisiana’s version of Mayberry, where kids could walk to school or ride a bicycle and everybody in town went to the football game on Friday night. Friday and Saturday nights were date nights, and most residents could be found in one of the many churches on Sunday morning.

Looking through old editions of the The Daily News and even farther back to The Enterprise, one can get a sense of what Bogalusa was like at the turn of the century – the twentieth century, that is.

Following is an article that was published in Bogalusa’s first newspaper, The Enterprise, on Thursday, July 1, 1915, just one year after Bogalusa was founded. You might find it interesting.

Bogalusa Recognized as One of the Most Progressive Cities in the Entire South

Bogalusa – The Magic City – is also known as the City Unusual. The progress of Bogalusa has been nothing short of phenominal (sic) and today is recognized as the only city in the south where Progress, Enthusiasm and Hustle is imbued in all our 11,000 happy citizens. Growing from a dense pine forest to a model city in less than eight years is the record of Bogalusa. And this growing has been steady and at times when conditions were far from normal. Besides having the World’s Largest Lumber Mill, the shops of the N.O.G.N., a million dollar paper mill, a large creosoting plant and scores of other smaller industries, Bogalusa lays claim to having the best schools and churches of any city its size in the country. Bogalusa is a different city and may be called a city of magnificent distances as the city has six business sections: Columbia Street, Richardsontown, Pleasant Hill, Northwest Bogalusa, Avenue B and North Bogalusa. There are three other residental (sic) sections to Bogalusa and the prediction is made, and we all know it is true, that in 10 years from today Bogalusa will be one of the best manufacturing centers in the south with a population of 25,000 or more.

The marvelous work that has been done in this community, in the building of the splendid city of Bogalusa, in the past nine years, has been due, to a large extent, to the many stockholders of the Great Southern Lumber Co. and the N.O. G.N.R.R. Co., who unfortunately do not live in the city and therefore are deprived of the many privileges that we as citizens of the city enjoy. To these people, scattered all over the United States and who by their faith in the men at (the) head of the Great Southern Lumber Co., and the N.O.G.N.R.R. Co., invested their money in these pine forests of Louisiana and who gave directions that the people who operated their plant should be surrounded by all the privileges that anyone living in a modern city enjoy, and who during all the depressing times that we have gone through in the last few years had so much faith in the ultimate outcome of the enterprise that they insisted on its continued operation even though sacrificing their own interests and sacrificing their timber in order that the people who are interested as employees might have steady employment and might not suffer the hardships that people living in other Southern lumber communities have had to bear, to these stockholders we owe a great depth (sic) of gratitude which the whole citizenship of the city of Bogalusa will very gladly repay to the very best of their ability during the coming years when it is hoped that general business conditions will be such that they will reap a proper return for their faith in Louisiana.

On September 14, 1905, a party of Great Southern Lumber Company officials left Covington, La., with a view of locating a site for a town somewhere between Slidell and Jackson, where a large saw mill would be erected. In the party were: F.H. Goodyear, president of the Great Southern Lumber Company; Mr. C. W. Goodyear, vice-president; Mr. W. H. Sullivan, general manager; Mr. F. J. Coleman, engineer; Mr. N.G. Pearsall, general manager of the N.O.G.N.R.R. The party arrived where the town of Bogalusa is now located on the morning of September 15, 1905, and found it a very attractive place for the location of a town, but were not satisfied on account of its being nearer to Slidell than it was to Jackson. It was then decided by the party to find a place which was suitable about 20 miles farther north. They found a place called Ten Mile, about 25 miles north of Bogalusa, but owing to the difficulties in purchasing the land at that place they decided to locate the town at the place which is now called Bogalusa. It took six months to name the town. All sorts of names were suggested until finally the name of Bogue Lusa was suggested, and inasmuch as the Government would not have two words in the name of a postoffice (sic), the two words were combined, making Bogalusa.

On Wednesday, February 7, 1906, the first tree in Bogalusa was cut down on the north side of the creek near Avenue B bridge, by J. L. McClendon, an old resident of this section, and on February 12th, tents were erected and carpenters, millwrights and construction men moved in and commenced the erection of a portable mill near the site of the present paper mill. There was sufficient timber on the site of the town to build the town, amounting in all to about fourteen million feet. It was first proposed to locate the saw mill plant north of the creek, but later on when Mr. F. H. Goodyear and Mr. A. C. Goodyear visited Bogalusa and looked the situation over again, it was decided to build the plant on the south side of the creek. This decision was reached on May 15, 1906. The town and plant were completed by November 1, 1907, but operation of the plant was not started until the first of September, 1908.

In the Park, within 50 feet of each other, are monuments erected to commemorate the life and service of Mr. Frank H. Goodyear, first president, and Mr. Charles W. Goodyear, second president of the Great Southern Lumber Company. To the wisdom and foresight of these two men and their associates, shareholders in the Great Southern Lumber Company, we are indebted to a large measure for the splendid town. Their instructions at all times to Mr. W. H. Sullivan, vice-president and general manager of the company, who designed and built the town and plant, were to make the town a good town to live in, giving the people good schools, churches, well arranged homes with electric lights, pure water, sewerage and all modern conveniences; to build good streets, good sidewalks, and to make the town so attractive that men who worked in lumber enterprise would be glad to live in Bogalusa.

As stated above, the city gets its name from the Choctaw name of the creek that runs east and west through the middle of the city. This stream is named Bogue Lusa, which in the Choctaw language means “Black Creek.” The combination of the two words “Bogue Lusa” into “Bogalusa” makes a very unusual name. No where in the whole world is there another place called Bogalusa. No where in the whole world has there been accomplished as much, with the same amount of money, with the same amount of energy, with the same amount of skill, as has been accomplished in this city. Wherever they are known, the people of Bogalusa are spoken of as a happy contented and boosting people and as a people who believe in the future of the city.