Thomas E. Willis, Hempstead Co., AR., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000




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Thomas E. Willis.  One of the progressive a~ representative men of 

Shreveport, who fills a position of importance in commercial circles 

here, is Thomas B. Willis, manager in charge of the great Chicago 

packing firm of Swift & Company.  Willis is widely known also for 

his ardent love of Nature, a sentiment not always noticeable in busy, 

practical business men, and for his years of strenuous effort for the 

protection and preservation of the country's natural scenic beauties 

and forests.



Thomas E. Willis was born at Hope, Hemp County, Arkansas, in 1882, 

moving when nine years old to Lewisville, Arkansas, where he attended 

school until 1898, when he first came to Shreveport, where he completed

 his education and had some early business experience.  For the last 

twenty years he has been continuously identified with Swift & Company, 

on March 1, 1904, starting as city salesman at Shreveport, in which 

position he satisfactorily qualified, and at the end of five years 

was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas, as manager of the branch house at 

that place.  In 1912 he returned to this city and assumed his present 

position as manager of the Shreveport branch of Swift & Company.



The enjoyment and relaxation that many men find in golf and other 

outdoor sports Mr. Willis has long secured as a hunter and fisherman, 

a large measure of his enjoyment consisting of his pleasure in the 

abounding beauties of Nature.  His susceptibility in this direction 

no doubt had a determining influence in bringing about his active 

interest in legislation for more stringent laws for the protection of 

the noble forests and beauty spots of Louisiana, and a more rigid 

observance of present regulations for the protection of the state's 

fish and game resources.



Mr. Willis is in sympathy with all civic movements of acknowledged 

worth.  He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a member and 

director of the Lions Club and is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite 

Mason and a Shriner, and an honorary life member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.  He is president of the Shreveport Chapter, the first to be organized in Louisiana, of the Isaac Walton League of America, which now has chapters in almost every state in the Union, and as such is the leader in the movements in which he has so long been patriotically interested.  He is chairman of the Caddo Lake Fish and Game Preserve.  The enactment of legislation creating this preserve and the placing of the same under the control and supervision of the Caddo Police Jury was obtained largely through the efforts of the Shreveport Chapter of the Isaac Walton League, and upon the recommendation of Mr. Willis, a full time game warden was appointed to patrol the preserve and protect its interests.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 88-89, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.