ALDEN BRIDGE

A village of Bossier Parish, Louisiana, about eighteen miles north of Shreveport and five miles east of the Red River. Alden Bridge was a sawmill town. Frank Thayer Whited and Hewitt Hobson Wheless built a sawmill there in 1891; however, Alden’s Bridge appeared on maps as early as 1865. When the mill was operating, the town had one telephone, electric lights and a post office. It was a station on the St. Louis Southwestern railroad, better known as the "Cotton Belt." Alden's Bridge received a post office June 30, 1890 with John Pickett as postmaster. The name was changed to Alden Bridge on June 11, 1892, with Irvin F. Elder as postmaster. Vagie H. Rivers assumed the post June 8, 1937. The post office was discontinued December 31, 1942, and the mail moved five miles south to Benton.

Bibliography: John Ardis Manry Papers, Collection 215, Northwest Louisiana Archives, Noel Memorial Library, Shreveport: Louisiana State University; Alceé Fortier, ed. Louisiana. Vol. 1. (Century Historical Association, 1914); Samuel J. Touchstone, Louisiana History: Bossier Parish. (Bossier City: Everett Companies, 1989); Clifton D. Cardin, Bossier Parish History, 1843-1993: The First 150 Years (Shreveport, LA: ImagePress, 1993).

Tags: Frank Thayer Whited, Hewitt Hobson Wheless, Alden Bridge, John Ardis Manry Papers