The Alexandria Library was designed by architecture firm Crosby and Henkel&nbsp;in the Beaux Arts style. Andrew Carnegie had sent the town $10,000 for the construction and&nbsp;S.S. Bryan agreed to match that amount. Like all other Carnegie funded libraries, the one in Alexandria was meant to be free, a place of cultural enrichment, and managed by the city. It remained a library until, presumably,&nbsp;around 1970 (it is not clear exactly when)&nbsp;when&nbsp;Angelique Stafford "Gic" Kraushaar started to galvanize support for a new museum. The building was remodeled and in 1971 the Alexandria Historical and Genealogical Library and Museum, as it was then called, opened.&nbsp;The museum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.&nbsp;

Alexandria City Railway Co. Stock Certificate located in the museum

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Founded in the early 1970s, the Louisiana History Museum collects, presents, and interprets the history of central Louisiana and the rest of the state. It is housed in the former Alexandria Library, which was built in 1907 with a financial gifts from Andrew Carnegie and local philanthropist S.S. Bryan. Its collections and permanent and changing exhibits explore numerous topics including Native American history and culture, the Colonial Period, the American Revolution, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War, and Louisiana geography, politics, and agriculture. The museum contains one of the best historical artifact collections in the state, including thousands of photographs and a collection of vintage postcards. The building also houses the Alexandria Genealogical Library. 

Louisiana History Museum

This short walk through the heart of Alexandria LA and includes several downtown landmarks and museums. The tour starts at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral and then moves on to Emmanuel Baptist Church, Hotel Bentley, the Alexandria Museum of Art, Arna Bontemps African American Museum and the local Louisiana History museum. 

The cathedral is not the first Francis Xavier Church. The first was built 1834 and it was located on Front Street. It was used until 1895 when, unfortunately, it was destroyed by a fire. By that time, however, the construction of present church had already begun. It was completed four years later and the first mass was held on November 27, 1899. The belfry was added in 1907 and the clock in 1908. The rectory was first built in 1896, moved from its original location in 1903, and expanded in 1930. The academy building was first built in 1897 and expanded in 1907. However, in 1952, a fire burned down the original portion.

St. Francis Xavier Cathedral is a historic Catholic church in downtown Alexandria. Built in 1899, it is a striking example of Gothic architecture. It is part of a complex that consists of the church rectory and the St. Francis Xavier Academy building. The church features a tall, 135-foot clock tower topped with crenelations and four small corner towers, lancet windows with tracery, and rose windows. The academy building, which was erected in 1897, is impressive as well. It was designed in the Beaux Arts style and features arched windows, a gambrel roof, porch, pilasters topped with decorative capitals, and ornate dormers on the roof that have Corinthian pilasters. The rectory is a two-story structure that resembles a bungalow.

St. Francis Xavier Cathedral

Emmanuel Baptist Church was founded on September 6, 1881 as the Alexandria and Pineville Baptist Church. There were just twelve members at the time. The congregation changed the name to its current one in 1892. It appears that the congregation's first church building, a wood-frame structure located at Fourth and Jackson Streets, was erected in 1897. In 1920, an education building was constructed. Thirty years later, the current church building was dedicated on September 10, 1950. The education building was remodeled and a new addition to the church was built in 1960. In 1961, a new chapel was built. The entire church complex takes up most of the block.

Constructed in 1950, Emmanuel Baptist Church offers an example of Gothic Revival architecture in Alexandria and features a grand entrance consisting of a large, pointed arch made in ornate cast stone and a rose window; decorative buttresses; a bell tower with Tudor-style doorway, double-pointed arch windows with tracery, and tall, thin openings; and stained glass windows. The congregation itself was established in 1881. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Emmanuel Baptist Church 

Joseph Bentley was a Pennsylvanian native who found wealth in Central Louisiana’s lumber industry. He built the hotel, as the story goes, because the Ice House Hotel rejected his request to stay there. As a result, he decided to build his own hotel. He liked the Capitol Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas and hired architect George R. Mann to design a hotel. The hotel first opened on August 10, 1908. He later added a new wing in 1933, which are now condominiums. Bentley created his living quarters on the top floor and had his own personal elevator, which still remains.Hotel Bentley’s connections with the Louisiana maneuvers is what gives it most of its historic significance. The training maneuvers consisted of hundreds of thousands of soldiers being trained for the upcoming war in Europe. The hotel was a meeting place for the military officials to formulate plans against the Axis powers. Several well-known military officials stayed in the hotel, including Dwight Eisenhower and George S. Patton. There is currently a museum display in the first lobby which showcases the history of the Louisiana maneuvers. It includes artifacts such as uniforms and soldier's equipment.Not only is the hotel one of the most historically significant places in the region, it is also one of the most haunted. Joseph Bentley is said to have died in his third-floor suite and there have been rumors about his ghost roaming about the hotel. There are several other rumored ghosts: a girl who fell down an elevator, a man who fell down the lobby stairs, and ghosts looking over the balcony. The ghost stories have gotten so notable that the Bentley was featured on the Syfy show, Ghost Hunters.

Hotel Bentley, also known as “The Crown Jewel of Cenla” is a historic hotel located in Alexandria, Louisiana. Over 100 years old, it several famous individuals have stayed here including John Wayne and Roy Rogers. Joseph Bentley built the hotel in 1907 amd otl officially opened on August 10, 1908. In 1933, an eight-story building was added, which increased the number of rooms to 80. The hotel was a meeting place for army commanders during World War II, and a WWII museum is now in the hotel’s lobby. The Bentley was closed by the late 1960s and reopened in the early 1980s. Afterward, it was sold in the late 1990s and closed in 2004. It only recently reopened in 2014. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a fine example of Renaissance architecture. 


Hotel Bentley

The Alexandria Museum of Art was established in 1977 as an extension of the Central Louisiana Art Association. The museum was originally located in a complex among historic buildings that included the former bank. However, since its founding, there had been a plan to have the museum housed in its own building, and thus, the museum trustees established the "Jewel in the Red" campaign. The objective of the campaign was to raise a total of $8,000,000 for construction, renovation, and operating endowment. Once its goal was achieved, the museum made additions and renovations, including the grand foyer. Only two years after its initial opening, the Alexandria Museum of Art was honored as an Outstanding Arts Organization.  Since its opening, the museum's mission has been "to preserve, exhibit, and promote visual art throughout Central Louisiana in a manner that contributes to the quality of life."1 The museum accomplishes this through its community programs and classes that showcase the art and its cultural importance, seeking to educate its visitors and offer them a cultural experience that will connect them to and appreciate art.  The museum's collection numbers over eight hundred pieces of original works. These pieces were made made by twentieth and twenty-first century century artists who have been influenced by Southern culture. The museum was established as an educational and cultural center to serve the community, and it continues to function as such today.

The Alexandria Museum of Art is the cultural center of Alexandria. Its mission is to bring art education to the community through outreach programs and exhibitions. Its collection contains hundreds of works—paintings, photographs, ceramics, prints, sculptures, works on paper, and textiles— created by Louisiana and Southern artists as well as those impacted by the South. The museum is housed in a building consisting of the former Rapides Bank and Trust Company building and a modern addition built in 1998. The old bank is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Alexandria Museum of Art 

Arna Wendall&nbsp;Bontemps was born October 13 of 1902. His family hailed
from the Deep South, specifically Alexandria, Louisiana, which contributed to
their Creole heritage. His father, Paul, was a bricklayer and his mother,
Carolina, a schoolteacher. His father would play an integral role in shaping
Bontemps life and choices. Paul Bontemps encouraged the family to move to Los
Angeles when just three. Arna was reared in California and attended San
Fernando Academy for his adolescence. It was during this stage of maturation
that Bontemps was advised by his father “not to go up there acting colored.”
“there” meaning school. This is an urging Bontemps will later allude to in many
of his works as an attempt to make his disregard his heritage.&nbsp; 

Bontemps attended Pacific Union College and graduated in
1923. Just the next year he accepted an offer to teach in Harlem, New York.
Bontemps articulated that his original plan was to continue his own schooling
until obtaining a Ph.D. in literature; however, this failed to happen. He married
Alberta Johnson, a former student, in 1926. The pair had 6 children, while
Bontemps took continuous teaching jobs to support. His time teaching in Harlem
seemed to work as an inspiration though, and during the years of and following
his marriage he won 3 first place prizes in contests for “New Negro”1 poets.
That was not the only advantage on teaching in New York at this time. Bontemps
would meet and collaborate with a number of other widely talented African
American writers during the mid- 20th century including, most
notably, W.E.B Dubois, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. 

Bontemps first published poems were seen in Crisis and Opportunity, two magazines that promoted the writings of young
Blacks. His first full-length book, a work of fiction detailing the exciting
life of a Black horse jockey who went by Little Augie, was released in 1931. Reviews
were mixed, most negative critique came from those complaining that the book
focused to heavily on the more promiscuous side of life in the African American
community. The same year Bontemps took a teaching position at Oakwood Junior
College in Huntsville, Alabama. He would be let go just two years later due to
tensions that arose from the clashing his own liberal political views and book
topics, which opposed the conservative outlook of the College. During this time
Bontemps penned a children’s book with the help his friend Langston Hughes,
called Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti.


After leaving Alabama Bontemps pursued farther education,
getting his master’s from the University of Chicago in library science. He was
then appointed to be librarian at Fisk University, an elite Black college. This
role was followed by many honorary teaching positions and degrees from
institutions of higher education including the University of Illinois and Yale.
Bontemps returned to be a write in residence at Fisk after serving in these various
professorships. 

Arna Bontemps died in June of 1973 of a heart attack. He had
been working on an autobiography. Many scholars of African American history and
literary history contend to the fact that Bontemps writings have not been paid
the attention they deserve. He does hold a specific reputation among historians
though, not for his works of literature, but for his role as a keen preserver of
African American historical documents and therefore culture. &nbsp;His home now acts as the Arna Bontemps
African American Museum and Cultural Arts Center. 

&nbsp;

Arna Wendall Bontemps was born in 1902 in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was a graduate of of Pacific Union College in California, where he had moved during childhood. Bontemps also taught at Harlem Academy in New York. He would become a pivotal figure and poet during the African American literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance. He was a widely celebrated writer, publishing 25 books, which included novels, children’s books, biographies, histories, poetry and play collections. 

Alexandria Louisiana Local History Walking Tour

Louisiana History Museum

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