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Alexandria: Growing Pains
THERE IS A DEBATE among local historians regarding when the City of Alexandria was founded. After receiving a land grant from the Spanish in 1785, Alexander Fulton built the first settlement in what is now Alexandria, but the first plans for the City were drawn up 20 years later, in 1805, by Fulton and his business partner Thomas Harris Maddox. However, nearly sixty years later, when Union forces burned Alexandria to the ground, most of the city’s original records were destroyed. This year, Alexandria is celebrating its bicentennial, but many have argued this historic anniversary actually occurred in 2005, two…
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Jena Six: Observations from Central Louisiana
Over a month ago, CenLamar featured a compendium of information on the case of the Jena Six. Since then, the compendium has been widely circulated and read. Throughout the past month, however, the story has taken many turns, and recently, charges were reduced to a lesser offense against four of the young men who were initially charged with attempted second degree murder as adults (the sixth is being tried in juvenile court). Here in Central Louisiana, the case of the Jena Six continues to be a contentious issue. According to the results of an unscientific poll released by The Town…
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How Interstate 49 Has Shaped Alexandria
On May 1, 1996, construction was finally completed on the last section of Interstate 49, a 16.6 mile strip bisecting Alexandria, Louisiana. Eleven years later, Alexandrians are still trying to grapple with the effects of having an Interstate highway cut through the center of town. There have been many positive benefits, of course: I-49 connects two of the nation’s most important Interstate highways, I-20 and I-10, and it has given Alexandria a truly multi-modal transportation system, which plays a critical role in our region’s development. But the completion of I-49 through Alexandria has also caused some collateral damage to property…
CenLamar | Est. 2006
