Denham Springs, Livingston Parish with connections to Orleans and
East Baton Rouge Parishes, Louisiana
File prepared by D.N. Pardue
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From the book entitled "The Free State - A History and
Place-Names Study
of Livingston Parish" by the members of the Livingston Parish American
Revolution Bicentennial Committee in cooperation with the Livingston
Parish Police Jury and the Louisiana American Revolution Bicentennial
Commission, 1976. Reprinted by permission. Dedicated to the memory of
Reuben Cooper and Raymond Riggs.
DENHAM SPRINGS is the largest area of commercial and residential devel-
opment in Livingston Parish, and the only parish municipality classed as
a city at this writing. The city is situated at the intersections of
the
east-west highways, US 190 and Interstate 12, with La. Hwy. 16, the
major
north-south artery in western Livingston Parish.
Denham Springs is also located on the Illinois Central Gulf
Railroad,
a line which played a large role in the city's early development. The
Amite River also forms a portion of the municipality's boundary, but the
river is not navigable at this point.
Ground-water springs which some to the surface at the base of the
low-
lying ridge which runs through the center of the city have figured in
the
city's name since at least the 1850's. The area has been known as Amite
Springs, Hill's Springs, and Denham Springs. (1)
The original land claims of John Noblet and Alexander Hogue form
what
is now the older section of Denham Springs, including the first
residential
and business districts. In 1828, William Denham, a Wilkinson County,
Miss.
native, married Mercy Hogue, the daughter of Alexander Hogue, and three
months later purchased the 640 acres originally claimed by his
father-in-law. (2)
A popular belief, supported by previously published histories, is
that
William Denham discovered the mineral springs on his property and that a
health resort quickly grew up there. This belief defies logic, however,
con-
sidering the number of springs which may be found in this area even
today, and
the length of time that elapsed before Denham arrived on the scene. No
doubt Hogue and other early residents of the area depended on the
springs
for drinking water.
Denham evidently was not a resort hotel owner either, because the
1850
census lists his occupation as "farmer." On May 1, 1855, Denham sold
the
Hogue tract to Stamaty Covas of New Orleans for $3,050, and he
eventually
moved to Baton Rouge and to Texas. (3)
Apparently during the time Covas owned the Hogue-Denham tract, and
before
the Civil War, a health resort did flourish at Amite Springs as the
hamlet
was known at that time. Several newspaper articles and advertisements
survive to this day to describe the hotel and the facilities which it
offered. (4)
It is assumed that the hotel was burned during the Civil War,
although
no evidence to support this assumption has been found to this date.
Following
the Civil War, Covas, the New Orleans businessman, lost possession of
the
Hogue-Denham tract when George L. Minton bought it for delinquent taxes.
(5)
According to the 1882 act of sale, the land was bounded "east by
Chambers,
south by Noblet, west by the Amite River, north by Allen, and known as
the
Denham Springs tract." This points to the fact that although William
Denham
had moved away nearly 30 years before, his name was still associated
with
the mineral spring area.
Minton, the first mayor of Denham Springs (1903) and founder of the
Denham
Springs News, thus received title to much of what is now the downtown
section of
Denham Springs. Conveyance records at the parish courthouse show that
he then
began subdividing the tract and selling the lots for residences and
businesses.
By this time, the large Noblet holdings were also being subdivided and
sold to
newcomers, and the village that became Danham Springs began to grow.
In October, 1879 Joh Sullivan made an application for the
establishment of
a post office north of the present city limits. The location of the
office was
given as one mile south of Beaver Creek and one mile east of the Amite
River on
what is now La. Hwy. 1028 or the Old River Road. (6)
Three names were considered for the post office - Pine Bluff, Allen
and
Hill's Springs - with the Post Office Department settling on the latter
when it
was finally established on Jan. 12, 1880. By at least 1890, John R.
Allen had
become the postmaster and the office was moved inside the present city
limits.
In 1894 it was situated in the northeast quarter of Section 25, the
section
just north of the Hogue-Denham tract. On May 9, 1898, the name of the
post
office was changed to Denham Springs. (7) Popular belief has it that
this was
only done to honor William Denham, but a local resident remembers that
the
Post Office Department ordered the name changed because of confusion
with
similar post office names in Louisiana. (8)
Two week before the local name change, the Webster parish post
office of
Springhill was established and it is possible this name was confused
with Hill's
Springs. The other "confusing" names in 1898 were Springfield, Spring
Ridge,
and Springville (two of these were in Livingston Parish.) and perhaps
they had
some influence in the change.
Two reasons were given for the development of Hill's Springs and
Denham
Springs in the 1890's and early 1900's prior to the completion of a
Baton Rouge
to Hammond railroad line.
One was the development of the springs by hotel owners. A New
Orleans
publication entitled Men and Matters described the so-called
health-restoring
properties of the spring water in a 1902 article on Denham Springs. Ivy
Cockerham and J.B. Easterly built hotels in the area near the present
public
park on Tabernacle Street, and evidently there were some who believed
the
springs to be beneficial to sickly person, because a letter now owned by
the
Lamar Cockerham family, addressed to Charles H. Thomas in Hill Springs
by
his employer, W.J. Knox, president of the Bank of Baton Rouge, states,
"by
the advice of your physician, you have gone to the springs...."
Another reason given for the development of the community is the
fact
that a fine school, the Denham Springs Collegiate Institute, was founded
by a group or residents in 1895.
According to a graduate of the institute, the school was a good
one,
attracting boarders from miles around. The boarding students may have
created more demand for hotels than did invalids visiting the springs,
al-
though the hotels did have many guests in the summer.
The Collegiate Institute was located on the site of the present
Pres-
byterian Church, on property sold to the private school by George L.
Minton.
The first buildings included a large meeting hall and a smaller frame
structure.
The four-year institution was financed by tuition paid by students
from
Denham Springs and neighboring communities, and the board of directors
was able to attract teachers from as far away as Virginia. (9)
About 1908, the board of directors deeded the property to the
public
school system, which was coming of age with the construction of consol-
idated schools, and shortly thereafter, a two-story brick building was
erected on the same site. This was the beginning of Denham Springs
High School, now the parish's largest senior high school.
On May 8, 1903, Gov. William W. Heard issued a proclamation
incorporating
the village of Denham Springs to include Sections 25, 30, 44, 45, 58
and 59 in T6S-R2E and T6S-R3E. Governor Huey Long designated Denham
Springs
as a town on Feb. 5, 1929 and lt. Gov. Lethar Frazar, standing in for
the
Kingfish's brother Earl, proclaimed Denham Springs to be a city on Sept.
5,
1957.
Several factors influenced the growth of Denham Springs after 1900,
notably the construction of the railroad line, the growth of Baton Rouge
as an industrial center, and the corresponding improvement of roads
which
made Denham Springs a desirable place for Baton Rouge workers to live.
The railroad prompted the gradual movement of businesses toward the
present Range Avenue area, and later made Denham Springs the shipping
hub
of a large truck crop region.
The Baton Rouge-Hammond line was completed by the Illinois Central
railroad during the first part of February, 1908 and the first train ran
on Feb. 26. Denham Springs almost missed being included on the route,
however, as the Baton Rouge, Hammond and Eastern Railroad Co., which
was later purchased by the IC, at one time considered bypassing the
village,
perhaps to force some concessions on the local residents' part.
A Dec. 20, 1905 article in the New Orleans Daily Picayune stated,
"The announcement was also made that it had been prectically decided to
deflect the road from its original course and pass through Denham
Springs.
The engineers are now surveying the route in Livingston Parish with the
view of making this change."
While many residents found work in the Baton Rouge plants and
businesses,
Denham Springs nevertheless became the commercial and banking center of
the parish.
The past 20 years have been a period of unequalled residential and
commercial development, and the city government and other agencies have
been hard pressed to meet the demands for service created by this
growth,
although great strides have been made. -- James E. Minton.
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(1) Article in the Denham Springs News, Oct. 23, 1975
(2) Marriage records, St. Helena Parish Courthouse, Greensburg, and
Conveyance
Book C, p. 282, St. Helena Parish Courthouse.
(3) Charles Louque Papers, Louisiana State University Library Archives,
Baton
Rouge, and telephone interview with Mrs. M. Earl Denham.
(4) See article in Denham Springs News, Oct. 23, 1975.
(5) Charles Louque Papers, LSU Library Archives, Baton Rouge
(6) Post office site survey, obtained by Clark Forrest, Jr. from the
National
Archives, Washington, D.C., 20408
(7) "Post Office Department Records" (Record Group 28) obtained by Clark
Forrest, Jr.
from the National Archives, Washington, D.C., 20408
(8) Personal interview with Mrs. Mary Brannon Jackson (born 1890) by
James
Minton in October, 1975.
* * *