THE BEGINNINGS OF THE
MODERN
SHERIFF'S OFFICE
In
1880 John Lake was sworn in as Caddo Parish sheriff.
Lake's administration marked the beginning of the
modern Sheriff's Office in many ways. Certainly it
marked the office's greatest period of growth since
its establishment.
For the year ending on May 31, 1880,
the Sheriff’s Office arrested 436 people and placed
them in the sheriff’s jail. Some were released after
paying a fine; others were sent to the penitentiary,
delivered to other sheriffs or U.S. marshals, or
released on bond. The cost of maintaining the
prisoners that year: $2,696.80. On the last day of the
year, there were 16 people in the jail.
As
sheriff, John Lake added a substantial number of
deputies and effectively increased the law enforcement
capabilities of the office. In 1889 the old courthouse
was deemed unfit for habitation and in 1890 was
demolished to make way for a new one. Several times
larger and with room for the Sheriff's Office, jail,
parish offices, judge's chambers, clerks of court, and
police jury, the new Romanesque Revival courthouse
became symbolic of Sheriff Lake's progressive
administration and Caddo Parish's growth and
importance.
The new courthouse was built at a
cost of $86,000. Although he had a significant hand
in seeing the new courthouse built and although his
role in designing the Sheriff's Office's quarters in
the new building was also significant, Sheriff Lake
himself never maintained an office in the new parish
courthouse. Just as the parish prepared to move into
the new structure, Sheriff Lake stepped down from his
post.
Sheriff John Lake served in office
for 12 years. During this time the length of the
sheriff's term was extended from one to four years,
which it remains today. In the election of autumn,
1879, Sheriff Lake was elected from a field of seven
candidates. Four years later he was one of only two.
After that he was unopposed in his candidacy.
Faced with deteriorating health,
Sheriff Lake decided to resign from his duties as
Caddo Parish sheriff in 1892. Lake's successor was
John Smith Young, an attorney, real estate developer
and board member of the streetcar company. On
September 10, 1892, he was appointed Sheriff of Caddo
Parish to fill the unexpired term of Sheriff Lake
following Lake's resignation. He was elected in a
popular referendum a short time later and twice was
re-elected to office, serving until 1900 when he
returned to his private law practice.
Sheriff Young's administration was
particularly noted for its efficiency in tax
collection and for setting the precedent of prompt
settlement with the parish Police Jury every 30 days
and with the State Auditor every 90. This system set
the legal standard throughout the state. In 1893
Sheriff Young collected 99.5% of taxes due in the
parish -- a record in the state at the time. There
were 3,675 taxpayers at the time.
Sheriff Young died on October 11,
1916, and was succeeded by his deputy Samuel J. Ward.
During the Civil War he had fought with Missouri
Confederate forces along with his close friends Peter
Youree and Thomas Fletcher Bell, both Missouri natives
who all ended up being paroled together in Shreveport
at war's end. Finding themselves without sufficient
cash to return home, the three young men stayed, all
going to work for merchants in order to earn enough
money to live on and, they hoped, return to Missouri
in time. None of them did return home. However, at
least not permanently, all three making Shreveport
their new place of residence, marrying local girls and
starting off in careers which would make civic leaders
of the lot.
As sheriff, Ward continued the
Sheriff's Office's expansion begun by Sheriff Lake.
Ward was persuasive in promoting the need for a strong
and efficient Sheriff's Office and urged the passage
of several taxes to fund its growth. Not only did the
duties and responsibilities of the Sheriff's Office
expand, so did the size of its staff. In 1902 Sheriff
Ward had three deputies and one jailer.
In 1905 the Parish Penal Farm was
established on the former plantation of Lieutenant
Gov. Caesar Carpentier Antoine, located on what is now
West 70th Street between Shreveport and Greenwood. At
the penal farm prisoners grew their own food and sold
the surplus to raise money for the jail's operation.
This self-sufficient facility, popularly known as the
"Pea Farm" (short for "penal" -- actual peas were not
grown there in any abundance) was the first
predecessor of today's Caddo Correctional Center. The
vine-covered ruins of the main building, completed in
1905, still stand but most of the acreage has been
developed as an industrial area, today boasting such
firms as General Motors and General Electric.
In 1906, Sheriff Ward died suddenly on
his 72nd birthday, and former Shreveport city auditor,
Caddo Parish Tax Assessor and Caddo Parish Coroner
James Patteson "Pat" Flournoy Sr. became sheriff,
filling his unexpired term. Popularly elected in 1908,
Flournoy altogether would serve as sheriff for a
decade, retiring in 1916.
During his time in office Sheriff
Flournoy oversaw a major expansion of his office,
including the hiring of numerous new employees,
deputies and support staff, and the expansion of the
Caddo Parish Courthouse, which in 1907 added space for
the Sheriff's Office nearly equal in volume to the
entire courthouse space as originally built in 1891.
Also during his administration the parish constructed
a new jail opposite the courthouse at the southeast
corner of Milam and McNeill streets. Completed in
1906, the new jail served its purpose for just over
two decades, closing when the present parish
courthouse was opened in 1928. It was demolished,
ironically by prison labor, in the summer of 1930.
In the early 1900s, the area north of
Shreveport – namely Oil City and Trees City – was
considered wild country. With the discovery of oil,
lease hounds, speculators, promoters and oil field
workers swarmed into the area. Overnight, saloons,
gambling houses and brothels sprang up in the towns
and communities, creating a serious problem for
reputable oil operators.
The closest law enforcement was 25
miles away, so in 1910, several oil operators appealed
to Sheriff Flournoy for help. The sheriff sent for
Pink Taylor, who had moved from the San Antonio Police
Department, and explained the situation in northern
Caddo Parish. Taylor accepted the appointment as
deputy sheriff and was placed on the Trees Oil Company
payroll to patrol the dives, protect the company
employees, bring the payroll from Shreveport to Oil
City by train, and enforce the law. By 1913, Flournoy
moved Pink back to Shreveport where he lived on
Crockett Street.
Also during Sheriff Flournoy's administration three of
his sons, George A. Flournoy, Joseph Howell Flournoy
and James Patteson Flournoy, Jr., all served as
deputies under their father. Joseph Howell Flournoy
was later to serve as sheriff himself.
In the election of 1915 Thomas Roland
Hughes was elected sheriff, beginning a series of
terms that would keep him in office for 24 years. A
native of Shreveport, Hughes was the first sheriff of
Caddo to actually have been born in the parish.
Early in Sheriff Hughes' administration
the size of the Sheriff’s Office was vastly expanded
in order to be able to proportionately serve the
growing parish population. Of course to accomplish
this the budget of the Sheriff's Office had to be
greatly increased as well, largely via tax increases
voted upon by the citizens of Caddo Parish.
Another outstanding event in the history of the
Sheriff's Office also occurred during the
administration of Sheriff Hughes: the tragic loss of
the first Caddo deputy killed in the line of duty.
His name was Lawrence E. Readheimer, and he was 36. On
May 6, 1919, an Oil City man identified in official
records only as "Armstrong" shot and killed Readheimer
as he was attempting to arrest him. Armstrong himself
was killed almost instantly as Readheimer's partner
returned fire. The incident occurred in Oil City,
then a very rough oil boomtown and a trouble spot for
crime in the parish during the early twentieth
century. The tragedy shook the Office, which had not
lost an officer since the death of Sheriff Sterrett 79
years earlier.
In the tenth year of Hughes' service as sheriff, work
began on the present Caddo Parish Courthouse, which
was completed two years later. The new courthouse
provided ample and then state of the art space for the
growing Sheriff's Office and also provided a modern
jail facility on its top floor. This new jail
replaced the old one across Milam Street, which was
torn down two years after its abandonment. Sheriff
Hughes had an important role in advising the
architects of the spatial needs of his office in the
new building, which cost $1.5 million, for which the
parish paid cash. Although enlarged and partially
remodeled several times beginning in 1968, the modern
courthouse Sheriff Hughes helped to create and
dedicate still remains the seat of government for
Caddo Parish and the site of many offices within the
Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Hughes’ period of service included the oil
boom era and the gangster era during the Great
Depression, two of the roughest periods in the modern
history of this region. Among the high-profile cases
pursued by the Sheriff's Office during this epoch were
the notorious "Butterfly Man" rape/murder case and the
pursuit of the outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
both in 1934. Indeed, it was Sheriff Hughes who,
together with members of the Texas Rangers and
Louisiana State Police, set up the Bienville Parish
ambush that resulted in the deaths of Parker and
Barrow. Sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents had spotted
the two only the day before in downtown Shreveport.
The "Butterfly Man" case was another
that gained national attention. Bunce Napier, also
suspected of the Mary Phagan murder in Georgia for
which Leo Frank was wrongly lynched in 1919, was
convicted of the gruesome sexual assault and murder of
a 15-year-old Shreveport girl. Napier was known as
the Butterfly Man because he made and sold paper and
clothespin butterflies door to door and it was in this
manner that he met the girl, whom he lured from her
mother's home with the promise of employment. When
her mutilated body was found near Cross Lake a massive
manhunt ensued. As Napier was held on the top floor
of the parish courthouse awaiting trial a large and
angry mob attempted to storm the building, intent on
revenge. Quick thinking by Sheriff Hughes averted
what could have been an even worse situation. As
employees were hustled out of the building sheriff's
deputies threw tear gas bombs into its corridors and
stairwells, successfully turning the vigilante mob
back. At the same time National Guard troops were
called in at Sheriff Hughes' urging to surround the
building and hold the mob at bay until deputies could
disperse it.
A few days later Napier was tried in
the very courthouse in which he had been held, the
very courthouse in which he had very nearly been
lynched. Convicted, he was sentenced to death by
hanging, a sentence that was carried out on May 18,
1932. Napier was the last prisoner hanged in Caddo
Parish but not the last to be executed within the
walls of the parish courthouse. In the mid-30s, the
door to the gallows was sealed shut and condemned
prisoners met their fate in the state’s traveling
electric chair, positioned on the seventh floor of the
courthouse.
Also during the 1930s, Sheriff Hughes
received a sort of dubious immortality when Huddie "Leadbelly"
Ledbetter, the noted blues guitarist, penned a song
about Shreveport entitled "Mr. Tom Hughes' Town."
Sheriff Hughes, who had captured and helped convict
Leadbelly of murder, viewed the musician as merely a
common killer and had strongly opposed early release
for him from prison. Sheriff Hughes concerns about
Leadbelly were well founded, for every time he went
free trouble followed.
Next Page
