Gilbert Dr. (a longshot photo request)
 

I don't see it here, but does anyone have a photo of the house that was torn down for David Tom's home on Gilbert - the corner one with the pond? Just saw something on the Fannin(?) blog about the lake being gone now. Reminds me of how long I've been away since last visit home.

Or some history of the property?

I lived down the street -bottom of Thrill Hill (which is worth some stories too). A friend and I would bike over to the pond to fish. Once we were caught in a giant thunderstorm (with hail) and the elderly lady of the house saw us and invited us in via the side door under that large overhang where we were sheltering.

She had her maid fetch us a couple of those little 8oz cokes "from the icebox" and we chatted until we could leave.

And what a fine house lost.

We'd also fish on the pond on the property at NE side Gilbert and Pierremont where the condos are now. http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&...&t=h&z=17&om=1

Damn - I sound like Huck Finn.

We were told by our real estate agent several years ago that the house had severe problems. I think if I remember correctly the foundation was cracked, there was profound mold, etc. If this is correct I am sure it is the reason the house was torn down. Toms did not buy the property for a while after it was torn down. I pass this lot often and they are now doing some work around the previous pond area. It looks like it dried up due to a lack of water run off hitting it. I bet it was beautiful back in the day though!

5801 Gilbert

Seems like there were two houses here. Where Toms house sits was a Stucco house with a pool and a pool house in the back, and next to it was a great big white house with columns. This house was more towards the curve in Gilbert.

Thanks for the info Texasbelle. Even back in the day the pond was silting up and chocking with plant growth - needing a major dredge.

purpahurl - that's sounds right. I'd forgetten about that.

salguodgrubmab - cool! thanks - that's the Gilbert and Pierremont location right? I'll have to ask my Mom if she remembers but we went in there a few times but cannot recall why. I think it was a preview for an estate sale - pre-condos at the pond. The only thing I recall - except for the grand proportions of the inside - was a long room across the back with lots of windows facing east - what a view from that "elevation" - you could look out over the whole area.
If my memory is right :)

Now - is that pic of the house that is still there or was there one torn down to make way for the condos?

Wow we have a lot in common jnc. I too went to "Lanford's pond" to fish while growing up. The house in question was the Werner house as I recall. Two houses were built on that land. The Summers home and David Tom's home I do believe. Years before tearing down the Werner house, someone poured a fortune in it fixing it up. Seems a waste to have torn it down. Yes Mrs Landford was a nice lady and didn't mind kids fishing. I caught my first largemouth bass (about 1 pound) out of that lake on a purple worm. I will never forget it. BTW, I also grew up near the bottom of thrill hill.

David Sol (I think that's right) the actor bought the villa style house. No wait , it was his ex wife, some actress. Anyway her and her son lived there in the late 80's.

Actually it may have been Langford, not Lanford. I'll ask my sister, she'll know.

Indeed :laugh:

:)Here's the skinny on this thread. Murray Werner owned the stucco house in question here. He owned Werner Co. which was a major contractor in the 70's and before. He left his estate to his grandson and namesake (Murray V.). The Summers bought that property and built a nice house at the corner of Gilbert and Querbes.

TB Langford was the husband of the nice lady (Mrs langford) who owned the pond and let us fish. After she passed away David Toms bought all that property and built his house on the North side of the property. I think her sole heir was a niece who lived in New York, but I could be wrong. Mr Toms is currently digging the pond deeper and plans on selling a few lots in the curve. As a side note, TB Langford was partners with RM Dean and founded the radio station KRMD. The RMD was Mr Deans initials. Mr Dean had a daughter who married a Wheeler and was my next door neighbor on Gilbert Drive as it turns out. They named their son Dean. It's stange how a little research can come full circle right back at cha! :)

David Toms does not own that whole big lot/pond combo unless he bought it in the last 6 months. About 9 months ago I worked on a project looking at doing some development there and David Toms wasn't an owner.

rhertz posting bad info :rolleyes: I used to date a girl in high school with the last name of Summers that lives right across the street after you make the curve going north on the left hand side of Gilbert. She live on a dead end street I forget the name :cool: 1977 :D

I think he did recently purchase adjacient property to develop. But I haven't checked the court records..... I could be wrong. Happens all the time. :D

That would be Dru Circle. The Summers moved about 0.1 miles some years ago after the kids were grown. Why is this bad info?

Yes it was Dru Circle ! I am laughing about Joes post :laugh:

Nodding I see. Yeah I'm about 90% accurate on average. :D Another side note is that TB Langford was a member of First Methodist Church and helped found the "eternal flame" fund where members would donate some of their inheiritance to the fund for special church emergencies. Years later when he pasted away, he left nothing to the fund or so I hear.....I guess he was a little tight.... LOL, is that bad enough 40 year old gossip? :D

Your attention to detail is impeccable rhertz. It is very rare to catch you in a slip. You are old Shreveport to the bone boy. Leaves fall close to the tree now don't they. I bet with joepole living where he lives he must have some major roots in old Shreveport too. Now just when you think private Pyle is going right he will go left. Any hoo good post and good homework.
Dru Circle :rolleyes: :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Great research rhertz :cool:. Never everwouldaknown. Technically, when I said I lived at the bottom of Thrill Hill - it was more like past the base on the top of the little next hill (picture a diminishing sine wave for all you in the year 2525 trying to understand this at a time with no Thrill Hill- after the land is smoothed from the paradoxical global warming glaciers and inevitable zombie invasion... as if you'd care anyway)... so our front yard caught a share of speeding cars not quite in control. But still, that's only a few houses extra away from where you lived - LOL. Wondering if I ever met you now.

A little google-juice led to more info. On T.B. Lanford.. . So patched together from a variety of links and SEC filings:

Another media thing he was involved with was KPLC, and was part owner of Red River Valley Broadcasting (1936-?.) and also caught the TV bug owned KALB via Lanford Telecasting Company (purchased by Park Broadcasting of Louisiana from his estate)

Found he was into oil. Naturally. DBA LANFORD & BACKUS. And Lanford Drilling.

Some info on DowntownShreveport.Com (which I can only access via the google cached page at the moment, so will paste part of it here below)

The former buildings of the Rubenstein Department Store are two distinct structures, one located at 513-515 Milam, the other, next door, at 517-519 Milam Street, opposite the beautiful Caddo Parish Court House.

The building at 513-515, now known as the Lanford Building, after former owner T. B. Lanford was built in 1907 by Joseph Dambley, a Shreveport photographer. The lower level served as Dambley's studios, the upper floors were leased out….

Also saw some tangential info that implied he owned “Tackle Industries” of Shreveport? some of those lures collected and traded today. Not the best pic to post compared with all of the nice vintage lures -but this has the text...
http://i14.ebayimg.com/07/i/000/88/f8/f99f_1.JPG

Either way - never knew we had a recognized lure industry. No surprise, just interesting.

These guys were into everything.

And ya'll crack me up :D Good forum.

>I bet with joepole living where he lives he must have some major roots in old Shreveport too.

My parents moved here in 1974. I was born here in 1976. My wife is from Mississippi.

I had one set of great-grandparents from here. My paternal grandmother grew up here until she went to college, married my grandfather, and moved to Monroe.

Yahoo has a slightly more recent photo that actually has Toms' house instead of just a vacant lot.

We have some really old aerials in my office (on slides, not on the computer). I'll see if I can dig up one that has the old white house.

Update: A Mr. AC Campbell originally owned that land and built the house and fence before selling it to TB Langford. Campbell was a contractor in the construction business. So he probably got a good deal on that wrought iron fence! ;)

LOL, diminishing sine wave. I lived after the 3rd hump (the last one). 4533 Gilbert to be exact. Now I'm really curious. jnc....The only "C" I remember was the Colvins at the corner of Huron and Gilbert. Other names on Gilbert that come to mind were Brandon, McKelvy, Tucker, Hudson, Knight, Fowler, Perrit, Dutton, Moffit, Burns. Am I getting warm? But on adjacient streets near Gilbert there were hundreds too numerous to mention. Those were the best times for Halloween Trick or Treat..


Yeah this is a great forum. Thanks for the added info jnc! Oil and Gas does not surprise me. But lures? I grew up knowing Bo Smithwick and Michael Bacon whose fathers were both in the lure industry but they didn't own mansions like ole TB. (I wish I saved all my old "antique" lures to sell on ebay)

There reallyis a lot of history up and down Gilbert Drive now that I stop and think about it. And not just architectural. Enough to write a book I bet... I'll private message you and maybe we can divulge our identities to each other. I figure you know who I am already. But I'm totally stumped. :)

I would really like to see it. I grew up on one part of Gilbert until age 8 when we moved to another house a couple of miles south near Gilbert. (age 9-18) It would be cool so see my old stomping ground as it was.

It's going to be days or even weeks before I could even begin to maybe have a copy available.

Understood. No hurry. I'm not fast in my efforts to dig up stuff to post here like Sal and you other guys. I have access to all sorts of photos that I need to scan and post. But it's great when one of us does find the time. This site is pretty good at digging up old memories that are buried deep. Thank you in advance for anything you have to post.

rhertz – the “nc” in j.nc is from where I am now, not initials. So…
I lived across from Dr. Tucker's house. Watched it burn to the ground Christmas Eve (what year? 196_?) because - as it turn out - of faulty wiring in the Christmas Tree.

My folks picked that house cause we are Yankee transplants and that was the "only" house in town at the time with a basement, a basement being a requisite need for us carpet baggers coming down to be a part of the startup team for Western Electric. Well, it wasn’t really a basement, more like split level but close enuff. My mom preferred one over on Thora (never heard the end of that argument).

Now, your info on Campbell as a contractor crosses with a post I saw on fannins blog; the poster there probably mixes up info on Campbell with Lanford (note spelling). So this puts your info as more correct. So “Tackle Industries” may have been owned by Campbell or someone else. The Internets remains silent on who ran “Tackle Industries” but it looks like H&H lures in S. La markets them now.

Oh yeah - nice trick or treat grounds. yes. good memories.

I remember that well. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. The story I heard was that everyone made it ouside safe, but Mrs Tucker ran back inside thinking her children were still inside and she got badly burned as the result…..


Basements are rare in Shreveport, however my grandparents in North Central LA (near Homer) had a basement but that is some of the highest ground in all of Louisiana. My wife is from Ohio and she tells that most everyone had basements up there. So I understand how important a basement can be to some folks. Where else do you store you potatoes and squash? :)

As for the spelling, I hear Lanford and Langford. I yield to anyone who thinks they have it right.

I am trying to remember the tuckers two next door neighbors.. The McKelvey’s were north of them and the Fowlers were south? But you were across the street….I don’t remember anyone past the Perrits on that side. I’m 47 years old. How old are you if I may ask? Do you remember when thrill hill froze over?

>My mom preferred one over on Thora (never heard the end of that argument).

I grew up on the 800 block of Thora.

Joe, I'm 47.. How old are you if you don't mind me asking? I know you've posted it before but I can't find it. Just trying to find our relative positions in time... I spent a lot of time at Pierremont Mall, Pak-a-sak, Norton's Art Gallery, and Uptown (TG&Y, Kings Hardware, Lewis's Drug Store) I know you are younger, but by how much? What teachers at South Highlands do you remember?

I just turned 31. Mrs. Taberlet was the principal during my tenure (K5-5th, 1981-1987) at South Highlands.

I had (in order) Mrs. Nehring, Mrs. Churchwell, Ms. Megison, Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Davis*, and Mr. Fair.


*in 4th grade we switched classes. I had Mrs. Davis for homeroom/Science, Mrs. Johnson for Social Studies, Ms. Finney for Language Arts, and Mrs. Redding for Math. In 5th grade they changed us back to same teacher all day

When I was growing up Uptown had a Weingarten's/Safeway, a Palais Royal, a Rubenstein's, a Woolworth's (became Eckerd's), and King Hardware. What is now Maxwell's was a 7-11 and then a Circle-K.

Stein Mart is where Selber's used to be (or maybe I have it backwards with Rubenstein's). Toy Fair (I went there today) has been there as long as I can remember.

I'm 47 and Thelma Gray was principal. (1st-4th, 1966-70) I had Mrs Wilmuth(sp?), Mrs Harper, Mrs Duran, and Mrs Safford. My most memorable experience was that we carried around magnets and pill bottles and "panned" for iron ore. We also made switch blades out of popcicle sticks and rubberbands.

My final update on the Werner house. I guess once the information starts to trickle in, then it flows for a while. :)

The Werner family sold to someone (Sol's wife?) who dumped a ton of money into it. They later couldn't sell the house for what they had in it. At some point, Smokey Hide and John Meldrum bought the lot off the seller. They divided it in half and as the story goes, they flipped a coin to determine who got which half. Meldrum build on the southern half between David Toms and Ed Summers. I'm still unsure why someone would tear down a remodeled house with all they money tied up in it.

I remember a GIANT crack running from the bottom left across the whole front so maybe the remodeling was just lipstick on a pig.

Yeah I do remember it being in need of bad repair. But I figured they took care of all that for the rumored dough the buyer pumped into that house. The rumor was close to a $1MM. Even if I'm wrong about that, there are foundation repair companies out there. I hired one to fix a townhouse in the 80's and the bill was $12k to "jack and underpin" the structure. But still, maybe you are right. Coulda been infested with killer mold or something, anything.

I heard a funny joke today. I graduated from South Highlands Institute of Technology
(SH!T)

:laugh:

Been traveling so need to catch up. Was Mrs. Taberlet the next principal after Mrs. Gray? Mrs Gray was principal the whole time I was there. I had a 7th Grade teacher at Broadmoor, Miss Neff. I ran into her at an open house at South Highlands (when???) and she was the principal. Seems like too much of a gap for Mrs. Taberlet to have been the married name of Miss Neff... hmmmm.

(I had a crush on Miss Neff, when she taught my class she was just out of college - 1st job)

Did you know Mrs Gray lived on Gilbert - on Thrill Hill?

Mrs Taberlet was principal when I was there 1981-1987 and she retired shortly afterward (either that year or the next) and Mrs. Byrd (Pam?) became Principal. Mrs. Taberlet was at least in her 60s when I was there so i doubt you had a crush on her unless you went there during World War II.

LOL - no. Maybe the person I'm thinking of was there before her.

I didn't remember that. Mrs Gray's brother was my dentist, Robert Palmer. I got to know them both pretty well as a kid. :D