Thomas R. Hughes, Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000




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Thomas R. Hughes since 1916 has served as sheriff of Caddo Parish.  

His record of official performance has been such as to establish new 

standards of efficiency and give him an enviable distinction among the 

state's representatives of law enforcement.



Mr. Hughes was born in Shreveport, in 1878, son of Walter B. and Ida 

H. (Jordan) Hughes.  His father moved to Shreveport in 1870 from 

Tuskegee, Alabama.  Ida H. Jordan is a granddaughter of T. B. Jordan, 

a pioneer of Shreveport who located in that city in 1843, and as a 

contractor built many of the first of what are now the old time 

business structures along the river front.



Thomas R. Hughes was educated in public schools and business college 

at Shreveport, and at the age of eighteen he took his first position 

as a bookkeeper.  For about twenty years he was in the cotton business 

at Shreveport, and as a buyer of that staple, made acquaintances and 

friendships with more people than perhaps any other mail in Caddo and 

Bossier Parishes.  It was this acquaintance and the esteem generated 

by his dealings and relationship that proved the sure foundation on 

which he has erected his public record.



Mr. Hughes was elected sheriff and ex-officio tax collector of Caddo 

Parish in 1916, and in successive elections he has been chosen each 

time without opposition.  As sheriff he has a state wide and nation 

wide fame for the relentless manner in which he has prosecuted 

violations of the prohibition law.  His motto is that all laws should 

be properly enforced, and the result is that he has removed old time 

reputation for crime and law evasion in Caddo Parish, and has 

substituted one of general decency and respect for law.  His strict 

enforcement of the prohibition law has been officially commended by 

the federal prohibition department in Louisiana, and also by Roy 

Haynes, head of the Federal Prohibition Department at Washington.



However, it is not alone in the enforcement of the law that Sheriff 

Hughes has rendered efficient service to the public.  He is also 

called upon to handle tax collect ions for the parish, necessitating 

the creation and maintenance of a business organization equaling, 

even exceeding, that of many Industrial corporations.  The taxes 

collected for Caddo Parish for the year 1924 exceeded a total of 

three million dollars.



Sheriff Hughes is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, is a charter 

member of the Lions Club, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and 

the Episcopal Church.  He married Miss Millie Pruitt.  Their only 

child is a daughter, Mrs. James Ferguson.



NOTE:  The referenced source contains a black and white photograph 

of the subject with his/her autograph.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 45-46, by Henry E. Chambers.  

Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.