Trudeau History Tours

01/01/2025

Rachel Ellsworth’s family on a 2-hour walking tour of Shreveport
s historic district. Handsome and well-spoken travelers.

Would enjoy entertaining your family in this fashion. 318.272.6045

12/23/2024

Cold weather ramble from B Nai Zion to Antioch BC to old Galilee BC and back. Watching the changes through which Shreveport has gone.

Skylar, Judy, Brenda, Robert and Quintan.

11/22/2024

The secrets of the Municipal Auditorium were on the agenda as Home Schoolers gathered to enjoy a tour of the enormous symbol of the Roaring Twenties in Shreveport.

The trek led to historic Texas Ave, past the Caddo Common Park, and into the Hebrew section of Oakland Cemetery.

Trudeau's attempt to lead the chorus of Sam Cooke's "A change is gonna come" was met with a puzzled silence.

The lack of a historic sign at the site of the Castle Hotel, Sprague St, to note stays by MLK, Jr, and singer-songwriter Cooke was lamented.

Photos MaryCatherine Aranda.

10/30/2024

Banjo strings!

James Burton named to Country Music Hall of Fame

This low-key Burton NAMM interview was taped in 2005.
https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/james-burton

10/30/2024

A serious bid to get East Shreveporters to explore the piney woods that surround Cross Lake.
Explore, right? !

10/30/2024

Open for a tour today, Oct 30, at 10 am.
Text me at 316.272.6045.

Send a message to learn more

10/28/2024

The people we meet on Elvis Presley Avenue at the Elvis statue

Canadian youtube broadcaster Scott of "Scott on Tape," a pop culture site, likes to find readable material at cemeteries.
https://www.youtube.com/

He has been to Shreveport once before. and probably will return. Oakland Cemetery is brimming with readable history.

10/28/2024

From guitar we came and to guitar we will return.

10/27/2024

"From dust you came; to dust you will return," a phrase I associate with Carnival season, is the same as "memento mori," the Halloween-related phrase which exhorts us to, "remember, we must die."

Thus the Christian way was seen as consistent in major European celebrations.

Latinate choices, within the Western catechism.

Simply add a guitar or horn.

10/26/2024

History tours, walking tours, can be mesmerizing and jolly.
This group, repping Shreveport Green, was curious and super-attentive.

We went from the design of the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium (1829), where we decided that the Wiener brothers were definitively tripping, to the Yellow Fever Monument (How to Make A Monument in Shreveport, 2023), to the gunfight that got Nathan Goldkind on Texas St.

There was much, more, including the answer to the question, "How did Cora M. Allen raise so much money?

Book your tour at 318.272.6045.

10/23/2024

Our long-time podna, Rougarou, has a lot of night tripping to do this time of year. So stand by and take care, friends.
I don't think leaving a snack of toads and mickles is necessary, btw.

10/19/2024

Prizefest is so varied in product and effervescence that I don't have the time to properly write it up.
For the moment, I'm simply going to post images.

10/18/2024

Greeks in the pool

Flowing like nymphs on a pond, a well-rehearsed and talented cast of Centenary students used a deck and swimming pool - inside Marjorie Lyons Playhouse - to mount the play Metamorphoses on Thurs night. Based on the Greek stories about love and no love, the play by Mary Zimmerman was reasonably easy to follow.

Graceful movement in and out of the water and strong voices and clear diction was a strngth of the cast, which was directed by Jared Watson.

There's plenty of wit, too, if you are quick.

https://www.centenary.edu/news-media/story/centenary-theatre-program-presents-metamorphoses-october-17-20/

10/14/2024

What are the top 3 spookiest places to be recognized in Shreveport?

That question was asked of me by KTAL Living Local host Susan Kirton.

1. The Yellow Fever Memorial in Oakland Cemetery. Some 800 people were buried abruptly in a freshly-dug pit because there were no caskets remaining in Shreveport.

2. The empty lot on Sprague St across the from the gate to Oakland Cemetery. There's no sign. This was the site of the Castle Hotel, whose guests included Martin Luther King, Jr, in 1958 and 1960 and Sam Cooke in 1963.

3. Hamel's Memorial Park on the Fant Parkway, adjacent to the Red River. On the river in 1865 the steamship USS Kentucky sank some 14 miles south of Shreveport with the loss of 0ver 200 Confederate soldiers and families.

10/14/2024

Jared Watson, Ovid, a swimming pool and actors

Centenary Theatre Program presents “Metamorphoses” October 17-20.

It's an award-winning variation on Ovid’s tales in a production of Tony Award-winning director and playwright Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses.

Called by Time the “theatre event of the year,” Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses uses tales of Midas, Orpheus, Aphrodite, and more in a meditation on the joys and perils of being human.

Metamorphoses opens on Thursday, October 17 at 7:30 p.m. and includes additional evening performances on October 18 and 19. The show’s run ends with a 2:00 p.m. performance on Sunday, October 20.

The ensemble cast includes both Centenary students and community members and will be led by director Jared Watson. Watson is the producing artistic director of Stage Center, a local theater company and performing arts school that he co-founded in 2012.

Set in and around a large pool of water onstage, the play explores a world where primal storytelling and modern sensibilities collide, as gods and mortals alike endure love, loss, and transformation.

s new sensibilities and old-school storytelling together so well.”

Tickets for the CTP production of Metamorphoses are now available at centenary.edu/mlptickets. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors/military members, and $10 for students with ID. Tickets are free for Centenary students, faculty, and staff.

10/13/2024

Spreading the sound of Creole Jazz is our mission, you might say.
Allons danser!

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