Bio: Albert C. Steere, Caddo Parish La
Source: Chronicles of Shreveport and Caddo Parish, Maude Hearn O'Pry,
1928, 
Submitted by: Kay Thompson Brown
Date: May 2000



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

                      
                           A. C. STEERE

ALBERT C. STEERE was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, August 10, 1879. His
education was received at Thatcher's Institute of this city and Vanderbilt.
    Mr. Steere is a builder of dreams---an unusual combination. A dreamer
usually gets no farther than his dreams, leaving it to others to reap the
fruits and pleasures of materializing his dreams. The uglier the spot, the
more beautiful Mr. Steere dreams it; rushes forward making others to see and
believe, and ere the idea is grasped the dream stands out in reality, another
unsanitary spot transformed in an incredibly short time; another section added
toward making an ideally beautiful city.

    Mr Steere is the son of Cyrus S. and Johnette (Stevens) Steere.  The
father of the subject of this sketch was born in New York, being a descendant
of John Steere from Ockley, Surrey County, England, who came to Providence,
Rhode Island, in early Colonial times, the king of England having given him a
grant of land there.

    Young Alhert's first business enterprise was with Mr. R. R. Emery as
Steere & Emery. The only time he ever left Shreveport was to do a real estate
business in and around Los Angeles, California, returning to Shreveport in
1906 and went into real estate here. In 1908 he was associated with his
father, Cyrus S. Steere, under the name of C. S. and A. C. Steere. The name
was changed when a company was formed and incorporated under the name of the
Steere Building Company; next changed to the Steere Home Construction Company,
and finally to the A. C. Steere Company, Incorporated.

    Mr. A. C. Steere was the organizer of the American Compress and Warehouse
Company;  is a member of the Chamber of Commerce; Shreveport Mutual  Building 
Association;  a  member of the Real Estate Association; a director of the
Commercial National Bank and has certainly been literally a builder of
Shreveport. He developed the Chelsea Division;  Freeman Place, Waverly; 
Fairfield Re-Subdivision; Virginia Heights; Van Hook Steere; GIcn Iris; South
Highlands; South Highland Park Additions Nos. 1 and 2, and Broadmoor.  Mr.
Steere and Mr. Elias Goldstein donated the ground, half interest each, for the
Betty-Virginia Park, naming it for Betty Goldstein and Virginia Steere. Mr.
Steere developed many sub-divisions in and around Shreveport. The South
Highland Company was organized by Mr Steere; also the Caddo-Bossier Land
Company and he is the president of both of them. He has a large holding on the
Mansfield Road about one mile out of the city.

      Mr. C. S. Steere was the president of all the firms until his death in
July, 1924. He was also on the first Board of Directors of the Shreveport
Mutual Benefit Association in 1887, the year it was organized. He was a member
of the First Presbyterian Church, sang in the choir for years and was one of
its deacons,

       Broadmoor, recently developed by Mr A. C. Steer, has its own public
school, the grounds of which (about 2 1/2 acres) were donated by the A. C.
Steere Company; grocery, drug store, filling station and beautiful Golf
Course.

        Mr. A. C. Steere came back to the office one day after inspecting the
old red hill covered with pine trees, buoyed up with visions of a beautiful
suburb. So, he immediately graded and graveled from the corner of St.
Vincent's street, secured the gas, electricity, etc., and South Highlands
sprang into existence, the first of the many monuments Mr. Steere has erected
to Dreams of the Future, unconsciously having made himself a benefactor long
to be honored and remembered.