Old City Hall

The site of Ruston's city hall for decades, this building previously served as a livery stable and buggy repair shop. As automobiles came into vogue, it transitioned into a car dealership and auto repair shop. A two-cell jail was located in a small structure behind this building. The jail was demolished several decades ago.

Buried History Found in Ruston

by Wesley Harris

July 15, 2024

Professional photographer Shawn Hood keeps her camera handy and last month she captured images of Ruston history hidden away for over a century.

Hood was on East Mississippi Avenue where the city of Ruston is completing the last of the renovations to sidewalks and lighting in the downtown historic district when a hole in the ground caught her attention.

“I had the opportunity to see a small piece of Ruston’s history that has been hidden for over 100 years,” Hood explained. “As the city continues to improve its infrastructure, occasional surprises turn up where they are least expected. To most people, this just looked like a hole. What was in this hole was fascinating to me.”

Hood was just outside a building that once served as Ruston’s city hall.

“As I peered over the edge of the hole, I noticed three very old tanks. Two men from Perry & Sons in Monroe were kind enough to indulge me as I asked a plethora of questions, took a few photos and learned a few facts long forgotten about downtown Ruston.”

The old city hall and the adjoining buildings were first home to an early blacksmith shop, followed by a livery stable, a garage, a dealership selling Hudsons and Essexs followed by the Ruston Motor Company which sold Chevrolets. Ruston city government moved in after Ruston Motor Co. relocated to a new site in 1932.

The Williams livery stable met a vital need in early Ruston. Traveling peddlers or “drummers” and businessmen who arrived in Ruston by train needed horse or buggy transportation to get around. And suitors wishing to impress pretty girls rented courting carriages there before calling on their dates.

With the arrival of the automobile in Ruston, Williams sold his livery stable to the DeFreese brothers and one of the first garages in Ruston opened at the location. The three steel tanks Hood saw were once a part of that business. The two smaller ones were probably used for coal oil and kerosene, Hood learned. The larger tank was likely for leaded gasoline.

“The tanks had brass plates identifying them as coming from Underwriter’s Laboratory,” Hood said. “The tanks date back to 1922, the year Ed Williams sold his livery stable.”

“The two men who removed them were the first people to handle them in 102 years,” marveled Hood. “One man said he had been doing this type of work for 30 years and these were the oldest tanks he has seen.”

Earlier work in the alley behind the buildings discovered horseshoes, nails, wagon and harness parts left behind from the blacksmith shop and livery stable.

By the 1950s, the former stables molded into city offices were crumbling. A major renovation in 1953 gutted the building and replaced most everything from floors to roof. It would serve as city hall for another 22 years until the current city hall-civic center complex was built.

No telling how many jokes were told about the seat of city government being the home for a herd of horses’…. Well, you know.

"Buried History Discovered in Ruston," Lincoln Parish Journal, from https://lincolnparishjournal.com/2024/07/15/buried-history-discovered-in-ruston/