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This short walking tour covers just a few blocks and takes you to the heart of Shreveport's St. Paul's Bottoms, where the Castle Hotel once house leaders of the Civil Rights movement. You'll also see Shreveport's oldest public burial ground, learn about a woman who help prisoners in the Bossier Parish Jail, and learn the basics about Green Book sites where  people of color could stay, eat, and get gasoline during the darkest of Jim Crow days.

Despite its location in St. Paul’s Bottoms, a district that struggled with crime, the Castle Hotel’s proximity to the Oakland Cemetery insulated it for a while. It remained a haven for the Black community and even underwent expansions in the 1950s and 60s, adding rooms and its iconic canopy. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited the old Galilee Baptist Church in 1962, he stayed at the Castle Hotel. Reverend William Hines, Shreveport’s first Black police officer, recounted providing security for Dr. King in an interview with Shondra Houston and her student. “When Martin Luther King came here, I was assigned to offer security for him. I had the privilege of shaking his hand when he first came because myself, Tisdon… We had four Black officers, and we had to go to Evergreen Church and Galilee to offer security for him. He lived down at the Sprague Street Hotel because Blacks didn’t live in the Holiday Inn and all those places. There was a pretty good hotel out on Sprague Street and so that’s where he lived. I gave him security while he was here.”The hotel later fell onto hard times from which it never recovered, including robberies, shootings and murder. Edgar Jackson and Jackie Gipson pleaded guilty to robbing a hotel clerk at gunpoint in Oct. 1965. Another Castle Hotel clerk was held up by two men in 1974. They were never caught. A Dallas man, Gary Wayne Caesar, was convicted of attempted manslaughter in 1973 when he fired at two police officers responding to a disturbance at the hotel. In 1981 Bruce Ray McKinney suffered gunshot wounds to the neck and chest after an argument in front of the hotel escalated violently. Officers said the shooting was drug related, and the shooter was never captured. The most infamous case involved a Castle Hotel resident who murdered a local jeweler. Glenn Ford and two accomplices robbed Isadore Rozeman and shot him inside of his shop in 1983. The case received notoriety when Ford’s defense failed to block police photographs of his dirty laundry as evidence.Tragically, a series of fires sealed the hotel’s fate. Five people were injured, one seriously, when a two-alarm fire began in a second-story bedroom in 1975. Multiple fires broke out across the city one night in Dec. 1989 straining the Shreveport Fire Department’s resources. The three-alarm fire heavily damaged the Castle Hotel. The final blow came less than two weeks later when a fire set on the ground floor burned the upper half of the hotel. Due to the increase in crime and damage from the fires owners George and Alice Smith decided to tear down the building. Alice had hoped to place the Castle Hotel into the National Historic Preservation District and make it a shelter for the homeless, but all that remains of the iconic hotel are the front steps and part of the foundation.

In the heart of Shreveport’s St. Paul’s Bottoms stood the Castle Hotel, an integral part of the city’s history during the segregation era. Established by Cora Snowden in the 1920s, the Castle Hotel served as the city’s only hotel open to Black people during the Jim Crow and segregation eras. The hotel initially provided Black railroad workers in the area a place to stay. Throughout its history, the Castle Hotel hosted renowned figures of the Civil Rights Movement, including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ralph Abernathy, and Dr. Joseph Lowery. “It was a quality place,” remarked Claude Underwood, who charted local Black history for decades. “It was initially built as a home but later converted to a hotel. It was first class – with central air, hardwood floors, just like the regular Holiday Inns.” Dr. E.E. Allen, a dentist whose office neighbored the hotel, told the Shreveport Journal, “It was the only decent place Negroes could stay.”

Image of the eastern portion of the 1000 block of Sprague Street. The Castle Hotel is on the right, Dr. E. E. Allen's home and office building is on the left of the hotel. 

Shreveport’s Castle Hotel (1920s-1975)

Incorporated in 1839, Shreveport, originally called Shreve Town, was a frontier city. For a short time, before the statehood of Texas in 1845, Shreveport sat on the far western border of the United States. As such, the city was no stranger to the stereotypical vices that come with life on the frontier. Crime, gambling, and prostitution were all prevalent. Life was hard, and death often came quickly by way of violence or disease. Yet, the early settlers of Shreveport overcame adversity, shaping Shreveport into a thriving city built initially on cotton processing. The stories attached to the headstones in this cemetery tell the tales of tragedy and triumph, struggle, and success. Oakland Cemetery began its life in 1847 with a decree by Mayor Lawrence Pike Crain that declared all people buried in Shreveport must be buried within the new city cemetery. This city cemetery was renamed “Oakland Cemetery” in 1905 when the moniker was first used in print. Ten acres of land were purchased from Mary Cane, often called the “Mother of Shreveport,” to create the city cemetery. The mayoral decree called for three sections to be laid out within the cemetery: a potter’s field, a section for mayors and trustees, and one for private individuals. In 1859, the Hebrew Mutual Benevolent Association purchased one acre in the northeast corner, now known as Hebrew Rest. Simon Marks was the first person buried in this section just six days after the purchase. Hebrew Rest is the final resting place for approximately 300 members of Shreveport’s pioneer Jewish families, with 151 existing stones. Many private plots outside of Hebrew Rest belong to early Shreveport families, with several of Shreveport’s prominent residents buried in the eastern section. Today, Hebrew Rest still occupies the northeast corner, while the Odd Fellows and Masonic section is in the northwest corner, and the southwest corner is the site of the old potter’s field. Recently, a new monument dedicated to the victims of the 1873 Yellow Fever Epidemic was erected in the cemetery's southwest corner, on the location of a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of approximately 800 victims of the mosquito-borne disease. In addition to the approximately 800 yellow fever victims, another 5,000 to 6,000 of Shreveport’s residents are buried within Oakland, including an estimated 1,500 in unmarked graves. Rufus Sewell, brother of Shreveport’s first mayor, John O. Sewall, is believed to be the first person buried in the new city cemetery. As a testament to the environment of early Shreveport, both John and Rufus were killed in separate duels. Oakland is also the final resting place for at least sixteen mayors and possibly three additional mayors who may be buried in unmarked graves. Also buried in this cemetery are a chief justice and several associate justices of the State Supreme Court, as well as many sheriffs and politicians, including senators, representatives, and an ambassador. Veterans, particularly those who served the Confederacy during the Civil War, are numerous. One veteran, Lieutenant Eugene Augustus Woodruff of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, holds a special place in the heart of Shreveport historians. Assigned to Shreveport during Reconstruction, when federal soldiers were highly unpopular in the South, Lieutenant Woodruff was well respected. He is remembered more than a century after he died for his heroic acts during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1873. Although he was ordered to leave Shreveport, Lieutenant Woodruff chose to stay in the city to help the sick and dying. This brave act of compassion and defiance cost him his life when, at the age of thirty, he also fell victim to the devasting disease. Each headstone has a story, and all deserve to be told. Some burials of note include Albert Harris Leonard, founder of The Shreveport Times, who died in 1917; Sheriff Alexander Sterrit, whose wife was the sister of frontiersman Jim Bowie of Alamo fame; and Shreveport’s famous madam Annie McCune. Some of those buried in Oakland have special ties to the cemetery itself. Mayor Lawrence Pike Crain, whose decree is responsible for creating Oakland, is buried within these walls, as is Mary Bennett Cane, the first white woman to settle in Shreveport, on whose land the cemetery sits. Many of the headstones in Oakland are hand-carved and include the carver's name. William Kinney was one such carver. In 1906, he was buried in Oakland, where much of his work contributes to the cemetery's beauty.Oakland Cemetery is the final resting place for Shreveport’s white and Black residents. The first African-American cemetery, Star (add link), was not established until 1883. Notable burials of African Americans in Oakland include Dr. Dickerson Alphonse Smith, the first African American doctor in Shreveport, and his mother Amanda Clark, a formerly enslaved woman turned philanthropist, who used her inheritance from her former owner’s will to help the less fortunate of Shreveport. Also of interest are Dr. E. E. Allen and Alfred Legardy. Although they died over a century apart, both played significant roles in the history of Shreveport. Legardy, who died in 1897, was the first Black councilman in Shreveport, while Dr. Allen, who died in 1999, was the first Black dentist to be accepted into the local American Dental Association and the first Black man since Reconstruction elected to office in Caddo Parish.Oakland has not been immune to the passage of time. Both weather and intentional vandalism have taken their toll. As newer cemeteries, such as Greenwood, opened in 1893, and Forest Park, established in 1919, became fashionable, some families removed loved ones from Oakland for reinternment elsewhere. In 1907, Mayor E. R. Bernstein ordered the bodies of African Americans to be removed to allow for a straight road to be built into the cemetery. In his farewell message in The Shreveport Times, he stated that “bodies have been removed from the Oakland cemetery [sic] to the ‘Star’ cemetery for colored under a satisfactory understanding.”[1] Although the city was still selling family plots in the 1930s, overcrowding had been an issue since before the creation of Greenwood Cemetery. Today, burials in Oakland are extremely rare. The most recent occurred in 2011, with special permission granted by the city. This exception was made for the grave of Eric Brock, a historian whose research, extensive writings, and conservation efforts have proved invaluable in the preservation of Oakland Cemetery and the history of Shreveport. [1] “Farewell Message of Mayor Bernstein,” The Shreveport Times, November 17, 1908.

Established in 1847, Oakland Cemetery is Shreveport's oldest public burial ground and is also considered Shreveport’s oldest park. It was placed on the National Historic Register in 1977 and provides a fascinating record of the early history of this often lawless river city. Many of the city’s pioneers lie within its gates. From paupers to business tycoons, people from all walks of life are represented in Oakland. Politicians, philanthropists, and business leaders rest near lawmen, soldiers, and madams to form a “who’s who” of early Shreveport. For those interested in Shreveport's history, there’s no better place to find it than within the walls of Oakland Cemetery.

Oakland Cemetery

In a presentation at Bossier Parish Library’s History Center, Bossier resident Henry Smith shared how different it was to travel through the South during the 1960s. Smith’s mother was from Iberville Parish near Baton Rouge, and his father hailed from New Orleans. Every few years his family would take a trip from their home in Washington state to visit family members in Louisiana. The journey was long, spanning 3,000 miles. Without interstates, it took about four days to reach their destination.Smith fondly recalled a hotel in Cokeville, Wyo., where the family stopped before heading south. He said it was the last night of the trip that they slept in an integrated place.“Once we got to Oklahoma, we were in segregation country. It was getting late at night. We could tell when my dad came out of a hotel if it was yes or no. If he had a frown on his face, the answer was no,” Smith shared.Finally, his father found a motel they could rest at for the night, but there was a catch. Although the widowed motel owner “knew what it was like to be out on the road with no place to stay” she had reservations.The children of the last Black family to stay there played outside in an area out front. When other customers pulled up to the motel, they saw the children and assumed it was only for Black guests, so they drove away.The woman was concerned that her motel would lose business, so Smith’s family was allowed to stay on the condition that he and his sister didn’t leave the room. After they slept, the family quickly got back on the road.Smith attended an integrated school, and Washington had slowly begun desegregation efforts as he was growing up. He remembered his confusion as they drove through northwest Louisiana at night. They made their way through in blackness, with no indication of anything outside of the highway except the water tower with the words ‘Bossier City’ emblazoned on it.“Cheryl (Smith’s sister) said, ‘Daddy, I have to pee.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling of the car and said, ‘She comes to the worst place in the world and has to pee,'” Smith recounted.His father had a history with Bossier City. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) out of Barksdale Air Force Base in 1937. Smith later shared some of his father’s stories of repeated police violence against the Black men in the CCC when they went downtown to Texas St.Needless to say, Shreveport-Bossier was not a place his father wanted to stop at night.They pulled into a gas station with men’s and women’s restrooms clearly marked on the side. The station also had a large sign with the word ‘Colored’ written across it and an arrow pointing around the back.Smith’s father asked him if he knew where to go. He thought he did, but Smith wasn’t used to having segregated bathrooms and walked towards the men’s room before his father stopped him. When his mother and sister reached the back, they discovered they were unwelcome.“There was the one restroom and some lumber leaning against the door that we would have to move for them to go in there. No light. No nothing,” Smith explained. “Mother said, ‘Can you hold it?'”His sister nodded, and the family continued south. They had to pull over on the side of the road so his father could get some rest before they continued on to Baton Rouge, where they later had a harrowing encounter with local law enforcement when they lost their way.Smith said many people don’t remember what it was like to travel without a Green Book during the civil rights era.The books were directories of beauty salons, restaurants, hotels and other businesses where Black travelers were welcome. Published by postal worker Victor Green, they helped Black people navigate safely.The 1939 edition was the first to have a breakdown by state and the first to mention sites in northwest Louisiana. Although there were only a few in early publications, later books included a growing number of locations in Shreveport and around the region.Green Book locations across northwest Louisiana included:Springhill, La.<ul><li>Hotels</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Lloyd’s – 1229 Reynolds St.</li><li>Tourist Homes</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. A. Webb – 1245 Reynolds St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Grant Flatt – 1239 Reynolds St.</li></ul>Shreveport, La.<ul><li>Barber Shops</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Clay’s – 1017 Texas Ave.</li><li>Cabins</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Hollywood – 4240 Hollywood Ave.</li><li>Drug Stores</li><li class="ql-indent-1">People’s – 912 Pierre St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">New Avenue – 1062 Texas Ave.</li><li>Hotels</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Castle Hotel – 1000 Sprague St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Sprague Hotel – 1032-4-8 Sprague St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Carrilette’s Dinette &amp; Motel – 1201 Sprague St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Hardy’s – 1726 Ford St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Jessie Mae’s Hotel – 900 Fannin St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">The New Airport Motel – 4416 Hollywood Ave.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Will Steward Hotel – 1249 Oakland St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Jackson’s Motel – 2004 Cypress St.</li><li>Liquor Stores</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Dandy – 919 Harwell St.</li><li>Restaurants</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Wilson’s – 840 Williamson St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Grand Terrace – Pierre Ave. &amp; Looney St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Lighthouse Inn – 2321 Milam St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Saphronia’s – 815 Lawrence St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">King’s Circle Inn Bar-B-Que – 4054 Miles at Broadway</li><li>Road Service</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Hollywood Cities Service Station – 3807 Hollywood Ave.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Myles’ Auto Parts &amp; Wrecking Company – 2122 Cypress St.</li><li>Service Stations</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Ross’s – 901 Pierre St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Pat’s – Milam St. &amp; Lawrence St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">William’s – Milam St. &amp; Ross-Milam &amp; Pierre Ave.</li><li>Tailor</li><li class="ql-indent-1">3 Way (tailor) – 2415 Milam St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Jones – 1837 Looney St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Sprague St. – 1459 Murphy St.</li><li>Taverns</li><li class="ql-indent-1">A-Jack’s – 1836 Perrin St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">New Tuxedo – 611 E. 70th St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Goldie’s – 238 Baker St.</li><li>Tourist Homes</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Wilson’s – 840 Williamson St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. A. Harris – 2848 Milam St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. Ed Turner – 309 Douglas St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. J. Jones – 1950 Hotchkiss (now Milam St.)</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. W. Elder -1920 Hotchkiss (now Milam St.)</li><li>YMCA</li><li class="ql-indent-1">George Washington Carver Branch – 1050 1/2 Texas Ave.</li></ul>Mansfield, La.<ul><li>Beauty School</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Annie Lou – 615 Jenkins St.</li><li>Tourist Homes</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. M. Lee – Crosby Subdivision</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Mrs. M. Biles – Crosby Subdivision</li><li class="ql-indent-1">W. Simpkins – Jenkins St.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">S. A. Wilson – N. Jefferson St.</li></ul>Minden, La.<ul><li>Restaurants</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Jones – Corner of Abney &amp; Maiden Ln.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">Minden Grill &amp; Worthy’s Grocery &amp; Market – East Union &amp; Highway #80</li></ul>The New York Public Library created two tools to show how to navigate using the books. One is a map of locations across the country included in two editions, the other is a tool to help you map a route using information found in the Green Books.You can take a look at each edition of the Green Book through the NYPL’s digital collection.

For nearly four decades, the Green Book was an integral part of traveling safely for Black Americans. During a time of sundown towns and segregation, the books shared information on safe places to eat and sleep while traveling.

Henry Smith presents at the Bossier Parish Library History Center, Feb. 2024. 

Green Book sites in Shreveport

Lula Stewart spent her life serving the community. She taught in Bossier schools for 46 years before retiring. Stewart also served as president of the Women’s Missionary Department of the North Calvary Baptist Association, District 13 for 41 years. She remained active in the organization even after relinquishing her role. But one of the things Stewart was best known for was her prison ministry.LSU Shreveport and KTAL NBC 6 partner for Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail projectMrs. Lula A. Stewart portrait, The Times, Apr. 24, 2004 (Source: Newspapers.com, public domain)She gained approval from Sheriff L.H. Padgett and started a yearly Thanksgiving feast for the inmates. Although she regularly visited the jail, the Thanksgiving cook-in was a special occasion. Before the feast, the Women’s Missionary Department organized a sermon and hymns.Stewart said inmates often asked for prayers or for help writing letters to parents. The prisoners and others in the community affectionately referred to her as “Mother Stewart.”During a 1978 interview with The Shreveport Times, Mother Stewart explained why the program was important to her. “Some in the Benton jail have not had a visitor or even a letter since they have been there. In this manner, we exemplify God’s love to those who are lonely and sometimes forgotten.”Mother Stewart believed those in jail could be rehabilitated.“They can reform and go and make a good citizen,” she asserted. “They’ve just let the devil get ahead of them. Just because they’re in that dilemma doesn’t mean they can’t get out of it.”She believed that the prisoners weren’t inherently delinquent but that often, mentors simply failed to bring up children in a better way.Another part of her mission was working with the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office to improve prison conditions.Mother Stewart visits at jail again, The Shreveport Times, Nov. 24, 1978 (Source: Newspapers.com, public domain)Mother Stewart passed away in 1987 at the age of 105. Her obituary in The Times highlighted some of the good works Stewart did for the community during her life.“For more than 20 years, she sought and received assistance of business firms, banks, churches, politicians and individuals for clothing, food and toys, which she distributed among the needy in Bossier and Caddo Parish during the Christmas holiday season.”Through her efforts, she raised thousands of dollars for Bishop College, which she presented to them yearly.Civil Rights activist Mamie Wallace, one of Stewart’s 12 children with husband Rev. R. A. Stewart, told The Shreveport Journal, “She was a humanitarian and a devout Christian. And she taught us by example.” Her son Riley Stewart, who played as a Negro League pitcher in the 1940s and a member of the Caddo Parish School Board, told the Journal she encouraged them to be the best they could be.One year after Stewart’s death in 1988 the Christian Service Program named its new homeless shelter in her honor. CSP coordinator Margaret McCaffrey and Stewart’s living children told the Journal that Mother Stewart would have been pleased.The Mother Stewart House served the homeless of Shreveport for more than 30 years before it was abandoned. Sadly, the building caught fire in 2019 and again in 2023.

For over 30 years, Lula Stewart was at the heart of outreach and rehabilitation efforts for many in the Bossier Parish Jail.Here's her story.

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A King, a Castle, a cemetery, a humanitarian

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