Biography: Andrew Currie, Caddo Parish La.
Submitted by: Thomas J. Casteel



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ANDREW CURRIE.

ANDREW CURRIE was born March 4, 1843, in Ibricken, Kilmerry Parish, County
Clare, Ireland, the son of James and Mary Griffin Currie. He came to the
United States when six years of age with two brothers, landing in New York
City. He resided in New York and Niagara Falls until 1859 when he decided
to make his home in the south, coming to Shreveport in that year by way of
New Orleans.

At the outbreak of the war, Mr. Currie joined the Caddo Rifles under the
command of Captain Shivers, and his company was sent to Virginia. After
remaining with the Caddo Rifles for some time Mr. Currie received
permission from the hand of General Robert E. Lee to leave that company and
return to Shreveport for enlistment in another company that was forming
here. While serving on Col. Dunning's staff, he was captured at Arkansas
Post, taken to Camp Morton, Indiana, and held three months until an
exchange of prisoners was effected. He then joined the Provost-Marshall's
command but was again taken prisoner while on a scouting expedition near
Rome, Georgia, returned to the Federal camp in Indiana where he was held
until the close of the war.

Mr. Currie remained in Vincennes, Indiana, with a mercantile firm who were
Southern sympathizers for a year and then returned to Shreveport and
entered the sheriff's office as a deputy. Later he was elected constable
having been the first person to occupy that office. He took an active part
in the re-construction policies of his adopted city and as a reward for his
energy he was appointed Mayor of the city by Gov. Nicholls, being the first
Democratic Mayor to serve following the war. This was in 1878. He was
re-elected for successive terms until 1890, when he resigned from office to
look after his business affairs. Later he was sent to the legislature as
Senator from the district.

In 1896, President Cleveland appointed Mr. Currie postmaster of this city
and he filled that office for five years. Mr. Currie brought the Cotton
Belt and V. S. & P. (now Illinois Central) railway systems to this city,
built the first bridge to span the river at this point, established the
water works plant here and donated the first children's play-grounds in
this city. During his service in the legislature he fathered the bill to
establish the present Louisiana Polytechnic Institute at Ruston, secured
the passage of laws for the sale of state lands for the purpose of
constructing levees and fought unceasingly for the abolishment of the
Louisiana Lottery.

Mr. Currie was married in 1876 to Miss Annie Fort Gregg of Marshall, Texas.
They had two children, Andrew Currie, Jr., oil operator of this city, and
Mrs. A. L. Wallick, of Columbus, Ohio.

Mr. Currie died on February 8, 1918, and although ten years have almost
passed since that date, there is not a day goes by but that Mr. Currie's
name is heard in Shreveport. He was a life long member of Holy Trinity
Church and donated the land for the, present Catholic Cemetery on Texas
avenue. He was a member of Gen. LeRoy Stafford Camp, U. C. V.


From a Shreveport Times (owned by A. Currie) dated June 30, 1909:

Editor Times:

FORMER MAYOR BELIEVES CITY SHOULD ACQUIRE CROSS LAKE.

A short while back, owing to a decision handed down by the Supreme Court
affecting the ownership of about 14,000 acres of the area embraced in the
old bed of Cross Lake which extends with varying width from its confluence
with Sodo Lake, seven miles north of Shreveport, and Twelve Mile Bayou to a
point about 13 miles west of Shreveport in Tp. 18 north, range 16 west, the
City Council was aroused to the hope that the tract might be secured and
converted into a reservoir for impounding the rainfall to supply our city
with potable water in sufficient quantity to hereafter safeguard its
inhabitants from the danger and inconveniences of a possible water famine.
In this connection it would be of interest to your readers to be presented
with some data that may help to keep alive a matter of such grave
importance bearing upon the future welfare and growth of our city and the
comfort of its inhabitants. The decision referred to has been appealed from
and carried up to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it must
remain suspended awaiting its turn on a belated docket and the courtesy of
the Attorney General of our state, whoever he may be at the time, for final
adjudication.

On this account it impresses the writer that it might be to our general
advantage to seek a settlement out of court at as early a date as possible.
The Claimants and the Levee Board might be induced to surrender their
claims and pave the way for the Legislature to act at its next session
without any serious opposition in giving title to the city for an object so
entirely based on humanitarian grounds. The writer had the honor at the
request of almost the united voice of the planters affected by the
unprecedented overflow of 1892, to introduce the Act creating the Caddo
Levee Board and of his own volition inserted that feature donating to the
Board all the public swamp land in the alluvial area placed within the
jurisdiction and subject to overflow from Red River. Shallow Lake land was
not mentioned, and, believing that the letter, spirit, and the scope of the
act did not contemplate embracing any such land, there is very little doubt
in the writer's mind as to the final outcome of the case. Tradition and
some little historical narrative reported in the New Orleans Picayune in
the first decade of the last century, describes Sodo Lake, Caddo Lake,
Clear Lake and Ferry Lake as prairies; with only a small rivulet coursing
through them from Cypress and Jeems Bayou that headed up in northeast
Texas, partly fed by springs, which supplied the traveler's needs in those
days and the Indian tribes that roamed over their expanse. The rainfall and
storm water all ran off. Caddo's prairies were by no means terra incognito,
although there is only a small portion now on the maps known by that name.

Cross Lake had about 14 main prongs and laterals that extend in various
directions, north, northwest, west, and southwest, as far out as Elysian
Fields, Spring Ridge, north and south of Jonesville and Wascom, Texas, to
the ridges dividing the watershed of the Sabine and Red Rivers, and drains
an area of surface equivalent to ten townships or 360 square miles, of 640
acres each, and 43,500 square feet to the acre. The mean rainfall of our
entire country is estimated at 30 inches, and over the immediate section,
at 44 inches. The bed of Cross Lake contains only one-seventeenth of the
entire area it drains, hence would receive 748 inches or a depth of 72
feet. But after deducting the quantity that is absorbed by the earth for
agricultural purposes and plant life, and percolating into sub-reservoirs
to sustain wells and springs, say 10 per cent, and the general estimate of
50% more for evaporation, it is greatly lessened.

The latter estimate of 50%, however, considering that the surface of our
globe is 2/3 water and all evaporation returns to it from the clouds, a
more conservative estimate should reduce the fresh water share to one-third
of the rainfall; which would leave more than a depth of 30 feet of water
over the entire area of Cross Lake, if its typographic contour could hold
it us a catchment basin. It would then furnish us after all deduction, with
more than 18 and a quarter billion cubic feet of water annually. The daily
allowance for all municipal purposes seldom exceeds 100 gallons per capita;
or say twelve and one-third cubic feet; and for a year would be 4,500 cubic
feet for each inhabitant. For our population of say 30,000 people,
135,000,000,square feet or about one one-hundred and sixtieth part of the
total, leaving 159 parts of the 160 for dynamic power. This calculation
leaves out Sodo Lake receiving the drainage from the Caddo gas and oil
fields, which has to be excluded to avoid contaminating the supply
mentioned, but which might be supplemented for use in a power plant if
susceptible of economic conservation.

Now then, Mr. Editor, viewing the subject from the stand here shown, would
it not be well for the Board of Health, the Board of Trade, the Progressive
League and the City Council to take earnest cognizance of what appears to
be very important matter, especially while not otherwise strenuously
engaged in commercial or other pursuits, as is the custom during our Summer
solstice, discovered and inaugurated by Joshua who issued his famous
mandate for Old Sol to halt and steady itself in its glowing career, after
giving us the longest shine on the longest day. The printer's ink which
your liberal and progressive management of the Times has poured over its
pages eloquently boosting even Liliputian schemes, could not be continued
in a better cause, methinks, than in applying its invaluable force and
intelligence to the question herein introduced. Caddo has gone dry in one
respect, but it would be a disgraceful calamity for us to ignore the
generous gifts of nature that the kind Ruler of the Universe annually
showers upon us and abundantly supplies our most necessary wants. We have
placed within easy reach the element of water from which can be created
light and heat for use every night and day all the year round, but we
supinely and indifferently let it go to waste instead of intelligently
harnessing its superabundance of power. Do you not think that our community
through its leading men in the organizations named should awaken to a
knowledge of our situation and pull together to put our natural resources
to economic use?

Our surface rainfall so prodigally allowed to go to waste is really more
valuable than our entire volume of coal, gas and oil combined, when
properly stored for hydraulic and dynamic power. The money already expended
in the development of mineral fluids would have easily accomplished work of
greater value and more reliable for permanent use to our community. One
year's expenditures for all domestic and municipal purposes would doubtless
cover the cost of a permanent plant that could probably be operated without
leaving any chance for graft to creep in, for one-tenth of our present
annual outlay.

If our people take up the matter in earnest and work in harmony to make
Cross Lake one of the city's assets in the way outlined, Shreveport, I am
sure, would be the most lauded and distinguished of all cities known to our
modern times.

Yours truly,

A. CURRIE.

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From Chronicles of Shreveport and Caddo Parish, Maude Hearn O'Pry, 1928,
Pages 341-343

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