Lake Charles Commercial (Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, La.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
832 issues from 1881 to 1897, published in Lake Charles, Louisiana, digitised for Chronicling America.
Located in coastal southwest Louisiana near the state’s border with Texas, Lake Charles is one of Louisiana’s youngest cities. The first large influx of settlers to the region came in the 1860s and consisted mostly of Northerners and European immigrants. Lumbering was an important early industry. In the 1880s, the region’s agricultural potential began to be recognized. Lake Charles Mayor J. B. Watkins, a native of New York, embarked on an intensive advertising campaign in 1887 aimed largely at Midwestern farmers, who had experience growing grains. His efforts, together with those of Seaman A. Knapp, president of Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University),led to southeast Louisiana’s rapid growth as an agricultural producer, particularly of rice.
The Lake Charles Commercial was founded in 1881 by John McCormick (d. 1892). At that time, the town had a population of just over 800. A four-page Democratic weekly, the Commercial carried a mix of local, national, and international news. McCormick focused on promoting agriculture and industry, as well as schools such as Lake Charles College, founded in 1890 by New England Congregationalists. Much of the paper consists of advertisements placed by local merchants, many of whom were Jewish. Despite the large number of ads for local saloons, in the 1890s the Commercial carried a Women’s Christian Temperance Union column as well as other articles on the temperance movement.
Shortly before his death in 1892, John McCormick…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress