World's First Shriners Hospital

Shreveport won the hospital by campaigning. The Shriners decided in 1920 to build a children's orthopedic hospital, and the first was planned for St. Louis until land purchases stalled in 1921. El Karubah Potentate James Horace Rowland pressed Shreveport's case, raised money and secured the Kings Highway site, and Mayor L. E. Thomas joined the pitch in Atlanta; the city was approved in September 1921. The cornerstone was laid on May 12, 1922, the first patient was seen on September 16 in a downtown doctor's office, and the 60-bed hospital was dedicated in April 1923.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Louisiana State Exhibit Museum — 1.7 mi
  A circular Art Deco museum of 1939 on the Shreveport fairgrounds, with a 1,000-year-old Caddo log boat, rotunda murals and dioramas of early Caddo Parish.
• R. W. Norton Art Gallery — 1.8 mi
  A free art museum and 40 acres of azalea gardens in Shreveport, founded in 1946 on Rodessa oil money, with Remington and Russell, an Audubon folio and no photography allowed.
• Shreveport Municipal Auditorium — 1.8 mi
  The Art Deco hall of 1929 where the Louisiana Hayride went out over KWKH from 1948 to 1960 and where Elvis Presley first played Shreveport on October 16, 1954.
• Spring Street Museum — 2.2 mi
  An 1866 bank building downtown that also held a Freedman's Savings and Trust branch in 1870, now a free LSUS-run museum with a Victorian parlor and the original vault.

More markers nearby

• Josh Logan Home — 0.7 mi
• Old Agudath Achim Synagogue — 1.2 mi
• Masonic Temple — 1.2 mi
• Centenary College of Louisiana — 1.4 mi