The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1911-11-09
BOSSIER PARISH
to the World at Large by
the Cotton Belt Company.
This Great Railway System Gives Brief
Encomium of Our Unequaled Section
in Novel and Artistic Form.

Beaume of St. Louis, has heretofore been
quite active in advertising the territory
adjacent to this system, but not prior to
the issuance of the folder of which men,
ton was made in last weeks issue of the
Banner has this immediate section-Bos-
sier Parish-come in for such extensive
notice. That is, not that we are aware of.
The resources of Bossier Parish are be-
yond doubt exceptional and our advantages
over other sections are noteworthy, as the
Banner has always claimed and boasted in
its columns on many occasions. However,
the s=sion of this article is not to recite
these many claims as we see them, but to
give them to our readers as an outsider
has found them.
Extracts from the Cotton Belts folder
in question, which is entitled "North Lou
isiana Along the Cotton Belt Route" are
as follows:
NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE STATE.
Were this volume dealing with the
whole State of Louisiana there would be
much to say about semitropical gardens,
irrigated rice fields and great sugar plan
tations, for it is with these industries that
agriculture in Louisiana is most associated.
But as the description concerns only one
|
cluded in the city of Shreveport, and as
the practice of farming in this extreme
northwest corner of the State is more typi-
Arkansas, than of Louisiana, it will be
necessary in this brief space to tell only of
the soil and crops as they are to be found
along the Cotton Belt Route.
This will give greater opportunity for
| tho 9tofio Of hat hoo
ceived very little attention up to this time,
and it will present some of the States pos
sibilities in a new light. Louisiana,
famous for its green prairies and fertile
valleys, also has its high woodland pla-
teaus and its red sandy bottoms, lands
more suitable for raising corn and alfalfa,
cotton and potatoes, vegetables and fruit
Ia diversified farming country, if you
please.
Before dismissing Louisiana entirely
from the subject let US not, for our inter-
est in one particular corner of the State,
overlook the fact that Louisiana is devel-
oping more rapidly, agricultural conditions
are improving more steadily and that prop
erty values are advancing more surely
!. than they are doing in the Nation as a
whole. In the production of two great
staples-rice and sugar-Louisiana leads
all of the states. It's chief city, New Or
leans, is the second most important port on
the Atlantic coast. When the Panama
Canal is completed New Orleans will be
:, the open door to all of the markets of the
world, and that will mean that these fertile
:, lands of the immediate interior will become
! the producingsground for the food stuffs,
the cotton and wool, the cattle and horses
and the manufactured commodities which
will flow through the channels of COM
merce. 1t is worth keeping in mind that
Louisiana has the largest salt mines in the
, United States, and the largest sulphur de-
, posts in the world, and untold wealth in
oil and gas. Along her coast are great
. oyster beds and fishing grounds. In her
forests are billions of feet of the finest
! pine and hardwood timber, enough to run
: her mills for a hundred years to come.
9 Louisiana is rich in resources of many
= kinds.
THE ONE BEST SPOT.
t With this meager understanding of some
of the big things about Louisiana the
Q stranger will have keener interest in
t what is to be said about one particular
section of the State, especially when il
, can be claimed for this particular section
g that it is the newest and richest spot of a
= wonderful commonwealth.
Take your map of Louisiana and look
), toward the northwest corner. There you
Q will see the two parishes, Bossier and
b Caddo, both touching Arkansas on the
It north and Red River flowing between
them. It is in Caddo Parish that the great
o Caddo oil and gas fields are located, and
: here, too, is Louisiana's second largest city
Y Shreveport, about which there will latel
J, be something to say.
: This country lies at an altitude of from
e 200 to 400 feet above the gulf, with grad
8 ual slope of the land southwark. The
o climate is mild in the winter and in sum.
O mer the heat is moderated by the COO
breezes from the gulf. 1t is practicable t.
carry on farm operations nearly the entire
year. Freezing weather does not occur
= more than twenty or thirty days at time
: The rain fall averages from forty-two tx
> fifty -four inches annually during the grow.
ing season.
}. SOUTHWARK FROM LEWIsvILLE, ARK.
q The Shreveport branch of the Cottor
n Belt Route, from Lewisville, Ark, t.
q Shreveport, La, is sixty-three miles long
IT Twenty-four miles of this trackage is il
Lafayette County, Ark, and thirty min,
miles in Bossier Parish, La. At the nortl
n there are flat woodlands, from which tn,
d heavy timber has been cut. These land
3 are held in large tracts by lumbermen
q who are just finishing the harvest of tim
: Der and are moving out to make room TO
: settlers. These lands have sandy loan
Icoi 1xx,s{I 4