The Monroe Monarchs

The Monarchs were one man's project. Fred Stovall, described by Wikipedia as a Texas oil-drilling millionaire, built the team and then financed the Negro Southern League, formed in 1932 and the only organized league to finish that season. Casino Park stood on his plantation, at what became 29th and Hope, and was counted among the league's finest. The Monarchs went 26 and 22 in 1932, their only season as a major league club. The park was leased to the Monroe Twins in 1937. Pitcher Hilton Smith, a Monarch from 1932 to 1935, entered the Hall of Fame in 2001.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chennault Aviation and Military Museum — 1.7 mi
  A Monroe museum that began as a 1986 reunion of Selman Field airmen and now holds Flying Tigers displays, Delta's Monroe beginnings and a park of retired aircraft.
• Masur Museum of Art — 2.2 mi
  A 1929 limestone Tudor house on South Grand Street, built by a Monroe lumberman and given to the city in 1963 by the Masur family to become its art museum.
• Biedenharn Museum and Gardens — 2.7 mi
  The 1913 Monroe home of the man the museum credits with first bottling Coca-Cola, with a Coca-Cola museum, his daughter's Bible collection and her gardens.
• Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum — 3.7 mi
  A museum chartered in 1994 that tells the story of the Black pioneers of Monroe and northeast Louisiana, with local art, quilts and the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail's only Ouachita Parish stop.

More markers nearby

• The Savoy Ballroom — 1.5 mi
• The Honorable Abe Edward Pierce III Convention Center — 1.5 mi
• B.D. Robinson Conference Hall — 1.5 mi
• W.L. "Jack" Howard Theatre — 1.5 mi