23-02-2025
Shreveport's 'factory movement' of 1911 completely transformed Cedar Grove
The Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail project is expanding its scope with a new series designed to help historic villages, towns, neighborhoods, and/or cities in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, investigate three different versions of their communities: the past, the present, and the future. Team members include Dr. Gary Joiner, Mik Barnes, Jaclyn Tripp, Dr. Laura Meiki, Dr. Jolivette Anderson-Douong, Dr. Amy Rosner, Dr. Rolonda Teal, and Brenton Metzler.
The team is now focusing on the history of the Cedar Grove neighborhood.
In this, the first article in the series on Cedar Grove, Dr. Gary Joiner (Professor of History at LSU Shreveport) shows us how a social movement in 1911 Shreveport drastically changed Cedar Grove.
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Did you know that Cedar Grove was once a hotspot of industry in the American South?
The first hint of modern industrialization occurred in Cedar Grove in 1859 when Louisiana reserved 280 acres of land in Section 25 for the Vicksburg, Shreveport, and Texas Railroad as part of a grand attempt to create a transcontinental railroad.
Much of the railroad bed across northern Louisiana was cleared and prepared, but the tracks for the transcontinental railroad in this region were not laid before the Civil War. Both sides of the future railroad tracks remained farms and forested areas for the remainder of the nineteenth century, but things began to change after the formerly enslaved were emancipation.
After the Civil War, Black farmers and farm workers lived in the area that would one day become Cedar Grove. This rural community was integrated long before political and social conventions swept America.
The first house of worship in Cedar Grove, Little Hope Baptist Church, was built in 1894 on an acre of land donated by Maria Wright. Wright was a Black landowner and a charter member of the congregation.
The people of Cedar Grove came together in 1904 and formed the village as a legal entity. Within less than a decade, Cedar Grove underwent a brilliant factory movement that successfully attracted workers and factories to the area.
This article focuses on Cedar Grove's urbanization, which caused the village to grow so rapidly that it became a positive example of social and economic change in the American South. However, the article also acknowledges that when Cedar Grove transitioned from a village to a neighborhood in Shreveport, the former community lost some of its historic identity.
The origin of the name 'Cedar Grove' is a mystery. Historian Eric Brock conjectured that it might have been the name of the Pickens family plantation or perhaps from the Caddo Indian word, Wahahula, meaning 'watering place,' or even early settlers who mistook the abundant pine trees for cedar trees.
However, regardless of how Cedar Grove got its name, in January 1911, The Shreveport Journal published an article about a master plan for Cedar Grove that had been planned by an Indiana man.
'George B. Wheelock of Anderson, Indiana, Represeting a Strong Firm, announces that at least four manufacturing plants will be established and car line extended on lot sale plan,' wrote a Shreveport Journal reporter on Jan. 18, 1911. 'The Indianians have purchased a large tract of land situated just south of the city along the line of the Kansas City Southern railroad… The name of the tract just purchased is Cedar Grove addition. It will be laid off in lots of 50 by 150 feet, with 60-foot streets and 20-foot alleys. Forty acres will be reserved for factory sites, for donation by the promoters. The plan is to place the lots on sale at $200 each, payable $20 down and $10 per month until paid fair. The citizens will be asked to buy the lots as real estate investments.'
In the article, Wheelock also said the plan was to locate industries on the lot sale plan, which his team had followed most successfully in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Anderson, Indiana, and other places.
'If we sell these lots in Cedar Grove addition to the people at their actual worth without any industries being located thereon, and then we establish the factories, we will be putting the industries here virtually as gifts to the citizens,' said Wheelock in the article on pp. 3.
George B. Wheelock was a highly praised businessman from Anderson, Indiana. He was manufacturing 'horseless carriages' in Indiana as early as 1907, and he served successfully on a committee of 13 men who completely transformed Anderson, Indiana in the early 1900s.
'We don't care to give one person credit over another in our great movement, but we can't resist the temptation of suggesting three rousing cheers for Goerge B. Wheelock… the literal hub about which this lot movement has radiated,' wrote a reporter for The Anderson Herald in a story that published on Apr. 17, 1908. 'It has been called the Watkins plan and Mr. Watkins suggested it. But the one man above all others, Mr. Watkins included, who made it go, was our own fellow townsmen and spendid citizen, George B. Wheelock… He has been a veritable dynamo that, operating in the center, has been felt to the very point of the circumference, and to him first, let us doff our hats.'
An article about how Anderson, Indiana attracted factories to their town, printed in The Indianpolis Star on Dec. 27, 1908, stated 'But in order to obtain the results they had in mind they did not shift the work or responsibility to one organization or one class of men, but formed themselves into one great committee, the duty of which was to get results… Literally every many, woman, and child in the city is entitled to great credit for the success of the movement, for each responded to every call and took advantage of every opportunity to help.'
By January of 1911, Wheelock was in Shreveport trying to begin what he called the 'factory movement.' His movement would teach the people of Shreveport how to work together in a way that included all citizens regardless of class.
Mrs. George B. Wheelock of Anderson, Indiana, came to Shreveport, too, in late September 1911. Many Shreveport socialites considered her a guest of honor.
'A splendid start was made at last night's mass meeting in behalf of the factory-securing movement which has been launched in Shreveport. The proposition is a big one, but it was put to the people of Shreveport in such a way as to show that there is absolutely no chance for anybody to lose a dollar and in such a manner as to convince the most skeptical that the whole proposition can be carried through to successful completion,' we read in The Shreveport Journal from Jan. 27, 1911.
The plan was to establish a new industrial subdivision with at least four factories and a workforce of at least a thousand people.
A complex of glass manufacturers came to Cedar Grove in the coming years. There are four reasons the manufacturing of glass was ideal for Cedar Grove. First, there was flat land. Immediate access to vast sources of natural gas for furnaces attracted glass manufacturers, too, as did ready access to a railroad trunk line and an unlimited supply of high-grade sand from the Red River.
Cedar Grove glass factories made large-pane plate glass windows, canning jars, soda bottles, bell-shaped utility pole insulators, and skinny kerosine lamp chimneys. Belgian immigrants who came to Cedar Grove to work contributed much of their expertise. Among these firms were the Shreveport Window Glass Company, a subsidiary of the National Window Glass Company, the National Glass Company, and Southern States Bottling.
Wheelock explained to local papers in 1911 that at least 5,000 people would move to Shreveport, and it would take less than 18 months to get everything rolling. The funny thing is that people actually bought into the project. They believed Wheelock.
And because they believed the Shreveport Factory Movement plan actually worked.
A committee of ladies raffled off two lots to help support the 'factory movement' in late Feb. 1911. People began making commitments to buy residential lots and commercial areas. The factories were on their way, and both the lower and upper classes in Shreveport were in support of the movement.
As the first few years of the factory movement passed, with workers and employers in Cedar Grove happy with the progress, some detractors, holding to the Southern agrarian way of life, railed against urbanization in Cedar Grove. But a lengthy rebuttal to this way of thinking appeared in the May 28, 1913, issue of the Shreveport Journal.
'The Caddo Oil Refinery is today compactly built, a magnificent plant operating full time, and has money in reserve to declare a dividend on July 1. This plant is a credit to any city, and anyone condemning this proposal does not state facts.'
The Shreveport Journal, May 28, 1913
Shreveport newspapers were quick to document the progress. They wrote about the success of Hudson Lumber Company and the slow-growing success of Caddo Window Company.
Meanwhile, people in Cedar Grove were working at factories and using their salaries to purchase homes near the factories. One newspaper documented that many factory employees who purchased their own homes had gardens that produced as much food as farmers outside of Cedar Grove who lived on five acres.
The movement was growing stronger, and a middle class was beginning to form in Cedar Grove.
By June of 1911, The Shreveport Journal reported that Cedar Grove was on the railroad map. 'Trains leave K. C. S. shops 6:15 a.m., arrive Cedar Grove 6:25 a.m. Return, leave Cedar Grove 6:30 p.m. arrive Shreveport 6:40. Fare ten cents each way.'
'The Timpson [Broom] handle factory, while about complete, never has been operated consequently cannot be accused of putting men out of employment,' stated an article in a Shreveport Ad Club publication. 'This plant, within a few weeks from now, will be properly operated, having ample funds behind it for operations, which means the bringing into Cedar Grove, of a large number of men and their families. The Shreveport bottle and glass company, for a long time gave steady employment to a number of men. It did bust up, and a few men got stuck for their last couple of weeks wages, and we have no apologies to make. However, this plant has been taken over by the Ridgeway people of Indiana and will be in full operation shortly, which means the bringing in of from 200 to 400 skilled workmen. This will bring about the addition of a large number of families. The above represents the industries at Cedar Grove at the present time. It is a true statement of facts, and watch for the announcement of additional enterprises going into this addition.'
By Feb. 1912, Wagner Glass Works was under construction and Gardner Brass Works was producing carburetors. The Caddo Window Glass Plant was ready for operation.
Almost a year later, on Jan. 20, 1914, the following appeared on pp. 1 of the Shreveport Times:
'Full dinner pails and cozy homes, clattering hammer, and loaded car: Solid town of the South. 'What has been done in Cedar Grove proves it is a good thing–what is being done proves it permanence–growth of the factory site is remarkable.''
The newspaper reported that the Caddo Window Glass Company was running full blast, and a 50K steel water tank 110 feet high was on its way to Cedar Grove. The Shreveport Glass and Bottle Works had hired hundreds of people, and the Hudson Box and Manufacturing Company had a sawmill in full operation.
Throughout the relatively short period in which Cedar Grove was far ahead of any other town in the region, there were more than 30 factories of different types in Cedar Grove. Cedar Grove had zero unemployment, its own banks, its own entertainment venues, churches, fraternal lodges, and in hindsight Cedar Grove was a thriving, growing, viable town.
George B. Wheelock, the retired carriage manufacturer from Indiana who began Shreveport's Factory movement, didn't live to see the success of his dreams for Cedar Grove. He died at his home in Anderson, Indiana, on July 26, 1914.
On Jan. 13, 1920, an election made it official when citizens in Cedar Grove voted to change the name of Cedar Grove to 'South Shreveport.'
'As soon as the necessary legal steps can be taken the name of Cedar Grove will be changed to South Shreveport,' announced The Shreveport Journal on Jan. 14, 1920.
Cedar Grove was annexed into Shreveport city limits in 1927. It is now known simply as a neighborhood.
Sources:
The Shreveport Journal, Jan 14, 1920, pp. 11
The Shreveport Journal, Sept. 2, 1911
he (Shreveport) Times, Aug. 12, 1911, pp. 3
The Shreveport Journal, Mar. 8, 1911, pp. 2
The Shreveport Journal, Jan. 27, 1911, pp. 26
The Shreveport Journal on Feb. 20, 1911, pp. 1
The Shreveport Journal, June 21, 1911, pp. 6
Original Land Patents, Sections 24 and 25, Township 17 North, Range 14 West (1839), Caddo Parish, Louisiana. Louisiana Department of Administration, Office of State Lands, Historical Documents Collection, Baton Rouge.
Caddo Parish Clerk of Court Records, 1862-1865.
Original Land Patents, Sections 25, Township 17 North, Range 14 West (1859), Caddo Parish, Louisiana.
History of First Baptist Church of Cedar Grove.
Eric J. Brock, 'To the Caddos, Cedar Grove Was 'Wahahula,' Presence of the Past, Shreveport Journal, August 15, 1999.
'Our History: Cedar Grove to mark centennial soon,' Lafayette [Louisiana] Daily Advertiser, February 20, 2014
Eric J. Brock, 'Cedar Grove Was First a Town On Its Own,' Presence of the Past, Shreveport Journal, February 21, 1998.
Louisiana Oil and Gas Museum, Oil City, Louisiana.
The Indianapolis Star, Dec. 27, 1908, pp. 5.
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