Louisiana AHGP

Part of the American History and Genealogy Project

Streets of Homer, Louisiana

After the location was adopted E. W. Capers built a storehouse on the northwest corner of the square.

This was a log cabin, wainscoted with boards sawed at, Eldorado, Arkansas, forty miles away.

The old Claiborne Hotel, a two-story house, stood north of the court-house.
Maxey Cheap Gash Store on the site of the pioneer cabin.
Three cute Germans, Samuel, Michael and Alexander Wiles, opened a little business house.

A. McCranie built on the southeast corner and established a large trade.
B. D. Harrison opened a newspaper office in 1851, and the same year the Masons of the village organized.
J. C. Blackmail's house stood where E. W. Collier's dwelling now is, but the old building was removed a point west, and in 1886 was occupied by J. M. White.
Green's house on the hill is occupied by the Widow Vaughan; on the site of Green Taylor's dwelling stands that of J. K. Willet.

Log tavern has given place to Mrs. McCranie's dwelling.
Bonning House, Thomasson's house, Col. Caper's house and Tillinghast Vaughan's house are all standing as reminders of Homer's early days.

The Otts House is the modern hotel of the town. The old Homer House and the old Claiborne House are referred to as belonging to a past age. The brick for the proposed Clingman hotel was burned in 1890, by Mark Lee. The projector of this house established the Clingman nurseries in 1873.

The temporary court-house, as well as the first permanent building erected for parish purposes, have disappeared. Up to 1861 every one of the buildings named had happy associations, but then the terrors of civil war spread over the place and the peace of this Louisiana Auburn was offered up as a sacrifice to the god of arms. Every home sent forth a soldier, and when the refugee families from the Mississippi Valley came hither to seek shelter from the storms, they found only non-combatants, stoical while enthusiastic, silent and thoughtful. The riflemen and artillery of the North did not come hither until the war was over, but the Trans-Mississippi battlefields claimed many of Homer's citizens and few returned to realize the political and social changes which a few years had effected.

Biographical Sketches | Homer Louisiana| Claiborne Parish

Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana, Southern Publishing Company, 1890