Town of Gilliam

The date that changed Gilliam is May 13, 1908. A tornado struck the community around dinnertime that evening, killed 34 people and destroyed most of the town, leaving only two homes standing. Fifteen more people died in nearby communities. Gilliam survived as a village in northeastern Caddo Parish, on U.S. 71, and John North, head coach of the New Orleans Saints from 1973 to 1975, came from the village. Today the community is a small one, with U.S. 71 as its main road and cotton country around it.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Louisiana State Oil and Gas Museum — 9.3 mi
  The state's first public petroleum museum in Oil City, on the 1905 Caddo Parish strike and the 1911 over-water well on Caddo Lake, with a derrick and a log-jam exhibit.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 22 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.
• Caddo Lake State Park — 22 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park on the Texas shore of Caddo Lake, where the Caddo told of a lake made by wind-driven water and visitors now paddle Big Cypress Bayou past moss-hung bald cypress.
• Shreveport Water Works Museum — 22 mi
  An 1887 brick pumping station on McNeill Street where Worthington steam pumps ran until 1980, now a free museum and a National Historic Landmark.

More markers nearby

• Belcher Mound — 5.3 mi
• Louisiana Maneuvers Led by General Patton — 5.6 mi
• Vivian Railroad Station — 8.7 mi
• Oil City — 9.4 mi