Bogalusa's Birthplace

The town began as a corporate blueprint. Frank Henry and Charles Waterhouse Goodyear, lumbermen from Buffalo, bought hundreds of thousands of acres of longleaf pine in Louisiana and Mississippi and chartered the Great Southern Lumber Company in 1902. Architect Rathbone DeBuys laid out the city, which went up in under a year with hotels, schools, a hospital and worker housing, in neighborhoods segregated by race. The mill's manager, William H. Sullivan, ran construction and then served as mayor until he died in 1929. The sawmill cut up to a million board feet a day and closed in 1938.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• At This Very Site — steps away
• The Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church — 1.3 mi
• Robert "Bob" Hicks House — 1.4 mi
• Robert "Bob" Hicks / Robert "Bob" Hicks Street — 1.4 mi