Newspaper, Grass Roots & Cockleburrs, Old and New Jena, LaSalle Parish, La. GRASS ROOTS AND COCKLE BURRS- Old and New Jena By Jack Willis Sponsored by Gotta Go Grocery & Video Home of the World's Best Hamburgers * Hwy. 8 West of Jena Transcribed by Pat Ezell, PatEzell@worldnet.att.net Submitted by: Kathy LeMay Kelly, P.O. Box 219, Trout, La. 71371 From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, Wed., May 10, 2000, Section B, Page 4 Thank You to the Times -Signal for allowing the following to be added to the Archives. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** OLD AND NEW JENA The U.S. Postal Service in 1871, began a campaign to rid all Louisiana Post offices of names with "creek" or "bayou" in them. Andrew Forsythe's brother, James, happened to be visiting from his hometown of Jena, Illinois. The northern town had been named for Jena, (pronounced Yana in German) Germany and translated to English, means "seat of learning." The Forsythes suggested the name Jena and it was formerly adopted. Little did the Forsythes know how prophetically they were speaking because Jena, Louisiana, was to become just that! The local citizenry banded together to establish education facilities in the Jena area. In 1869, they met at a point on Hemp's Creek, known as the Charles Coon place. This site was on the hill formerly occupied by the H.W. "Shotgun" Cannon residence. Mrs. Lonie Coon Cannon was a very gifted fourth grade school teacher for years and was the daughter of Charles Coon. By way of orientation, the first school, later known as the Jena Seminary, was located about 100 yards North of the Bellview Baptist Church. The Catahoula High School was located adjacent to the Jena Seminary. The Seminary was owned by stockholders and even had a board of directors. The Jena Seminary opened its doors in 1892, and heralded the advent of secondary education into what was to become the Jena school system, which was often referred to as a model for the State of Louisiana. About this time, William Buchanan and Company was making their intrusion into Catahoula (LaSalle) Parish in their quest for virgin, long leaf, yellow pine timber. Buchanan had scouted the Jena area via horseback in the early 1880s during a period of economic prosperity throughout the United States. The Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad sent its first locomotive with cars attached into Jena on December 31, 1903. The L&A interests had wanted to locate the new depot near where the Jena Elementary School crossing was on the now removed railroad track. But the citizens of Old Jena, fearful of vagrants, hobos and general riff raff, which they figured would naturally follow the trail of the railroad, rose up and rejected their first depot site choice. They opted for what would become New Jena. That first train was a work train, and there was no depot but this was soon solved. Even though the three main Jena businesses were located in Old Jena, they made a swift transition over to be near the new depot site. The businesses were operated by a Mr. Hodges, probably a brother to R.B. Hodges who had become Jena's Postmaster. The other proprietors were S.B. Hanes and J.H. Bradford. The post office "automatically" moved also. One of the first structures erected b y the depot was a hotel operated by John King. It was located where the Jena Town Square Pavilion is now located. On May 4, 1904, the first passenger train chugged into Jena to unload passengers and freight at the new Jena Depot. Already another hotel was going up operated by W.R. Coleman named the Star Hotel. Jena petitioned for incorporation in 1906 as a town. Governor Newton C. Blanchard appoint W.E. "Bill" Benton as Jena's first mayor and "Uncle" Bill Floyd as Town Marshall. Mrs. Chris Harper was the first Town Clerk. The first Board of Aldermen is not known. There was no Police Jury, but yet the residents knew the horse and wagon roads had to be maintained. Every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 55 were required when summoned by the Village Street Commissioner, to do his share of street and road maintenance, not to exceed eight days a year. The only way to dodge the ardorus labor was to pay a tax of $2.50 per year.