In last week’s Echo, we began the story of the political career of Minden’s John Nicholas Sandlin. At the conclusion of that column, Sandlin was at a turning point of his political career. From the election of Huey Long as Governor of Louisiana in 1928 until 1935, Sandlin had walked a political tightrope. Never overtly challenging the growing power of Huey Long, but not working hand-in-hand with the Long machine. Things would change in 1935, leading to a tumultuous year for Sandlin and the State of Louisiana.

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Earlier this week I was at the Gibsland Grill and noticed a campaign poster on the wall from the January 1936 Louisiana state elections. Discussing the poster with the owners, the Charlie and Marsha Andrews, I related my interest in the poster, as I had done much research centering on that campaign.

The January 1936 election was the first “post-Huey” election for the Long machine.

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Last week’s Press-Herald carried the story of the demolition of the baseball field at Victory Park. With that story still topical, I decided to rerun an article from a few years back, telling the story of the creation of the park and surrounding neighborhood for this week’s Echo of Our Past.

In attempting to piece together the history of our community, errors are unavoidable. The goal is to try to avoid substantial errors at all costs, and to keep minor errors to a minimum. In past articles I have mentioned that the original name of Victory Park was Wilson Park.

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Not every Echo of Our Past must be some great watershed event in the history of our community. On occasion it is very interesting to examine the local events of a typical period without earth shaking happenings.

This week’s column will look at the local events in Minden in May 1882, 127 years ago, as they were reported in the pages of the Webster Tribune.

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