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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.
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