History of Oaksdale, Allen Parish Louisiana
Submitted by Michelle Johnson
Date: January 1, 2007


************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************
  

History of Oaksdale
Allen Parish, Louisiana

The following is the results of a taped dialogue between Mrs. Bess Johnson,
of the Oakdale Branch Library and Mrs Messina Dunn Dickers, daughter of Mr. 
William Dunn, founder of Oakdale.

Mrs. Dickens...."well, you see my Papa's first wife was a Miss Janie Odom,
and she died. He raised a first family with her. Then he married my mother
who was a Miss Roxianne Johnson, from Pitkin, Louisiana. Here he raised a 
second family. I have heard him tell how he donated 80 acres for a townsite
of Oakdale. He said at that time he had a sawmill, a cottongin and was
postmaster. He was the first postmaster of Dunnville. He later moved his
cottongin to Pitkin, where he met my mother and they married. Once I
remember we came to the hotel in Oakdale when I was a little girl, to visit
Papa's daughter by a first marriage. She was a Mrs. Adeline Dunn Harrison,
and Papa had deeded the hotel to her, and she ran the hotel at that time. 
That's about all I can tell you, except Papa was a Baptist and originally
came from Mississippi when he was a child. He was 84 at the time of death,
on December 23, 1938.

Note: Mrs. Dickens has a picture of Mr. Dunn and her mother, a picture of
Mr. Dunn when he was a young man, and a picture of the hotel that was
owned by Mr. Dunn.