Support for LA 64 is provided by office of the Lieutenant Governor, Billy Nungesser.

Keep Louisiana Beautiful and the Louisiana Office of Tourism.

In this episode of LA 64, hit the road with me to explore Caddo Parish.

We glide across the cinematic waters of Caddo Lake.

Follow the oil trail that turned quiet land into Boomtown, and step onto the legendary Louisiana Hayride stage, where Elvis Presley became a star along the way.

We'll explore small towns, taste bold North Louisiana flavors, and find an unexpected connection at one of the nation's largest chimp sanctuaries from backyards to buy use.

Adopters is full of stories waiting to be told.

I'm Karen LeBlanc, a travel journalist and Louisiana native.

Join me on LA 64, a journey through all 64 parishes exploring Louisiana's less travel paths.

Sits in the northwest corner of Louisiana, right along the Texas line, where boom Ambition shaped the region.

I begin on Caddo Lake, site of the nation's first offshore oil well, and I follow that legacy into a city once a thriving frontier of the industry.

Then on to Shreveport, which set the stage for music legends and continues south to Keith Gill, home of a chimp rescue haven.

Along the Boom and Bust Byway, we visit small towns like mooring, Sport, Gilliam, and Belcher that shape the soul of Caddo Parish.

Caddo Lake is one of the most cinematic lakes in the nation, appearing in magazines and movies.

I'm headed out with Cadillac film consultant Aaron Applebaum to scale famous settings from the banks of uncertain Texas.

I jokingly say that in order to experience the beauty of Caddo Lake as a Louisiana hiney, to cross the line and come over to Texas.

True, the you know, the Louisiana side is open and industrialized with the first offshore oil wells ever drilled in the United States over water by the Gulf Oil Company around 1901.

I believe the Texas side is where all the trees reside.

I'd say 80% of the cypress trees in this world charges bald cypress forest that's submerged is on the Texas side.

Caddo Lake is a submerged cypress forest spanning 26,000 acres.

It's a maze of winding bayous and shallow wetlands.

This is called the Tea Room, and this was built when prohibition was repealed in 1933.

This was built solely for the purpose of selling alcohol legally, and this is the most photographed structure by far on the lake.

The United Nations designated the lake as a wetland of international importance, bringing global attention and eco tourism industry to Caddo Lake.

We arrive at one of the most photogenic sites on the lake, known as the Government Ditch, a shortcut through the swamps to reach drilling rigs.

We end our day on the lake, capturing the golden hour from above.

It's a serene finale to our sojourn.

The discovery of on Caddo Lake transformed city almost overnight.

Today, a drive through city reveals relics of its boomtown heyday with working pump jacks and farm fields.

I head to the Louisiana Oil and Gas Museum to learn about the boom and bust of this former Wildcat town.

Nobody realizes the history in the significance of this area, and the fact that the Caddo panel and Boyle Field produced enough oral to really win the First World War outright.

Today, my guide, Linda Davis, a lifelong resident of Oil City, carries those stories forward.

The very early derricks that they were made out of wood and later on they became made out of metal.

But everyone in all city practically had a Derrick in their front yard or their backyard.

We were nothing but an oil all boom town.

The first well was drilled here in 1904, and by 1910, nearly 25,000 people were collecting mail at the Old City Post office.

Before saying goodbye, I had to blow up the logjam.

It's a popular experience at the museum that mimics the Great Raft, a 180 mile logjam that clogged the Red River from south of Shreveport to Arkansas and created Caddo Lake.

I cross Shreveport Neon Bridge.

It's known as the Long Allen Bridge, spanning the Red River, and it is a glowing piece of sky sculpture connecting Caddo and Bossier Parish.

On the other side.

Downtown Shreveport unfolds where oil, wealth, and country music came together to create a cultural alchemy that defines the city.

Just a few weeks ago, young men from Memphis, Tennessee recorded the song on the sun label, and in just a matter of a few weeks, that record has skyrocketed right up the charts.

Long before Nashville was known as Music City.

The Shreveport Municipal Auditorium was the country music star maker.

This legendary venue was home of the Louisiana Hayride, a live radio show broadcasted on every Saturday night from 1948 to 1960.

It became known as the cradle of the stars, and I you know, I like to compare it kind of to the American Idol of the time.

This is where people would come to test their chops and get on stage, and if they made it, they would go on worldwide tours.

So they get taken up to the Grand Ole Opry, which happened.

And that was why we got the moniker cradle of the stars.

Johnny Wessler, a historian, takes me inside the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium, recreating some of the greatest moments from the Louisiana Hayride.

Standing center stage.

I find the golden screw.

It's the exact spot where country music legends launched their careers, including Elvis Presley, who made his debut here on October 16th, 1954.

We're going to do a song for you.

We got on and recorded goes something like this.

That's all right.

That's all right with you.

Let's all.

And mama, just a handy way to do.

That's all right.

The building was proposed in 1926 with funding led by the American Legion.

Today, this 3000 seat venue stands as a National Historic Landmark.

Backstage, I pass a wall of performers signatures and I step into Elvis's dressing room.

Last used on December 15th, 1956, during his final appearance on the Louisiana Hayride.

The Municipal Auditorium houses a museum of costumes, records, and photographs chronicling the artist who once took the stage upstairs.

Johnny shows me the projection Room, a rarely seen space where walls are scribbled with show notes from performers once in the spotlight.

Karen has left the building.

The Shreveport Municipal Auditorium anchors the corner of Elvis Presley Avenue and James Burton Street in the Shreveport Common Arts District.

A few blocks away, I step into the Strand Theater, built in 1925 as a vaudeville house.

Today, it's known as the grande Dame of Shreveport and sister to the New Orleans Singer Theater.

The Sanger brothers were the sons of the local rabbi, so the singer brothers moved to New Orleans and built the Big Singer Theater in New Orleans, which has about 4000 seats.

We have 1400.

So of course, it's much bigger.

But if you go in there, you'll see a lot of the same.

Now they're an atmospheric theater, which is a little bit different, but you'll see a lot of the same bits all through the theater.

But they went on.

The Sanger brothers went on to open 360 theaters across the South and Cuba, Puerto Rico.

During our interview on stage.

A ghost like glows in the background.

Which begs the question, is this place haunted?

Most theaters, when they're dark, meaning there's not a show going on, have a ghost light.

And it's actually to protect the theater ghost.

It's good luck to have a ghost.

So.

And we do actually have a ghost.

Around town.

You can see evidence of Shreveport latest entertainment industry incarnation fueled by music mogul 50 cent and is G-Unit production company Curtis 50 cent.

Jackson is coming to town and starting to build kind of a Tyler Perry empire here.

We've got a lot of stuff going on in both worlds in our film and entertainment world.

A lot of new stuff for a tourist to come and see some new attractions.

And for the film industry, a lot of new assets we can use to promote our film industry.

Storytelling once relied on craftsmanship long before special effects and digital screens.

The Louisiana State Exhibit Museum brings that tradition to life with one of the nation's largest collections of dioramas, immersive scenes that place you inside.

History.

The museum opened in 1939 as a New Deal project and an architectural jewel, with entrance murals by Conrad.

The exterior of the building, which is circular and I mean mathematically, the circular is made out of limestone and was all carved because it's circular.

It's not flat, you know, it's it's in section.

The Works Progress Administration hired artists and craftsmen to create these detailed dioramas.

State leaders wanted a way to showcase Louisiana's industries, agriculture and natural resources without rebuilding exhibits each year for the state fair.

So they created a permanent home and recreated the state in miniature.

This diorama is representative of an wildcat well, a wildcat well.

That was the beginning of the boom days in three one days.

Oil was discovered around 1906 on Caddo Lake.

Beyond the dioramas, Louisiana's story stretches farther back in time to the region's earliest settlers, the Cato people.

They carved this 30ft dugout canoe from a single cypress tree, carbon dated to around 1050 A.D.. Next, I move into the era of industry, ingenuity and machines that reshape daily life.

The Shreveport Waterworks Museum is the last remaining steam powered municipal water system in the nation, first put in operation in 1887.

This is the main boiler system for the whole entire steam powered pumping station.

It is the most important part of the steam powered pumping station, and this is going to make all the steam for all the pumps to run.

The massive engines and intricate mechanics are engineering marvels, helping make Shreveport one of the first cities to filter its water at a time when fewer than 10% of water systems in the country did.

Heron.

This is the main pump room that was operational from 1921, all the way up to 1980.

Moving all the water in and out of this property.

And when the property closed, they just left everything as is.

They knew they had something special.

They shut it off and just walked out of here.

This was built to run forever.

But compared to today's technology, it's it's artwork.

Nowadays, I travel further back in time to the Pioneer Heritage Center.

Hi there.

Karen, how are you?

Good.

Welcome to the Pioneer Heritage Center.

Well, the way you're dressed, I'm already transported back in time.

That's kind of part of our goal.

That's what we like to do.

So we.

We dress the part when we do our tours.

The Pioneer Heritage Center sits on the campus of Louisiana State University Shreveport.

It's a collection of seven historic structures that bring early settler life into focus through guided interpretive tours.

My guide, Marty Young, a skilled blacksmith, often demonstrates his craft on site.

We begin our tour at the commissary.

The whole idea was we wanted people to walk through the door and get the experience of walking into a 1880s turn of the 20th century general store and just say, whoa, you know, the amount of stuff that could pack in one of these small stores was just phenomenal.

Where did you get all this stuff, all these artifacts and vintage items?

So we have been collecting since 1976 to fill this museum.

So it is just one of those great things that we've done.

So when we decided to really stock the shelves in the general store, we did about a five year push and asking the public, just donate what you think would go into a general store.

The Pioneer Heritage Center opened to the public in 1978 as a joint project between LSU and the local Junior League chapter.

This is the oldest building that we have here at the Harrison.

It was built in 1850.

It's all pine construction, which is, you know, very typical for our style here because there was a huge pine ridge that ran through the central part of the state, and we fell into that.

The construction of this was a single dovetail.

So that means it's pointed and pieced together.

There's not any nails or anything used to hold this together.

Gravity is what holds this house together.

While on campus, I turn the page to another kind of history, one written, collected, and carefully kept.

I wanted to explore one of the largest public collections of rare books.

The Noel Collection contains the life's work of Mr.

James Smith Noel.

By the time he passed away in 1998, he established one of the largest private collection in the world, not just in America, but in the world.

A collection of well over 200,000 volumes, plus hundreds of prints and other artifacts.

In fact, the collection was so massive that he had to buy a train station in downtown three Ward in order to house it there.

We head into the vault that holds the oldest and rarest books in the collection, some written by hand on animal skin.

As I touch this and I look at this, what I think about is how valuable the written word was back then for you to write a word down on a piece of animal skin meant you had something to say, something of value.

Yeah, and it made books quite expensive because of that.

And it is kind of the transformation from a written medium in utilized animal skins to a proper book, which is printed and actually printed on a on paper, is one of the most important moments in history.

In fact, we have a book that revolutionized it all.

And I'm going to move this.

And that is, of course, got Gutenberg Bible.

This is the book that was printed, the first printed book, so to speak, in Europe, utilizing movable type.

And it set standards for a lot of things that we now take for granted.

The collection takes me back to a time when books were treasures, heirlooms, and works of art.

Tonal books expand to reveal 3D scenes.

A version of 18th century virtual reality panoramas unfurl to reveal entire scenes, such as Queen Victoria's coronation spanning 40ft.

Double for edge bound books reveal page edges that paint a reversible scene.

Hidden visuals from the quiet of the archive, I step into a different kind of living history, one rooted in the land.

The Walter B Jacobs Nature Park spent 160 acres of old growth hickory forest, with miles of trails and a new immersive facility that brings the story of the forest to life as we land into the storm.

You see that the pages of the Nature Journal have been ripped and are floating throughout, and as we travel, we will experience all the different flora and fauna that you'll find out in nature right here inside of Walter B Jacobs Nature Center.

We step outside to the Birds of Prey aviary, where I'm introduced to one of the Nature's Center's ambassador animals.

It's an American kestrel, our little falcon friend.

He's small in size, but powerful and presence.

So that's a little bit of an alert call, because we're standing beside America's symbol of freedom, which is a very large bird of prey.

It's the American bald eagle.

And we are very lucky to have this bird on display.

All our ambassador animals are not releasable into nature, and they come to us to serve a second life.

Instead of being injured in the woods.

We do not rehabilitate animals.

But after federally licensed and permitted rehabilitated cares for the animal deems him unreleased.

They live out the rest of their lives with us.

The food scene in North Louisiana tends to fly under the radar in foodie culture, often eclipsed by Cajun and Creole cuisine.

Chef Hartnett Harris is on a mission to create culinary respect for the food ways of North Louisiana.

When you come to to to Louisiana, just stop at the top of the boot and see what we have here, because we have really good food and it's authentically done and we're proud of it.

Chef Harris is a James Beard semifinalist and owner of US Up North.

She's championed the flavors and ingredients of North Louisiana cuisine.

She created the region's official meal recognized by the state legislature.

It's like a shout out to my ancestors to say, somebody is looking at this food that you cooked and served because you loved us.

And I always want people to feel the love and the plate after tasting this.

Already forgot about South Louisiana.

No, we're not trying to push them at the finish, but want to be us up north.

Celebrity chef Nema Degrassi is shining a spotlight on Shreveport culinary scene, bringing West African flavors to the forefront.

She beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network show with her signature cooking style on the menu at Abbey Singers Bistro in downtown Shreveport.

You know, when you mix West African and a little bit of Louisiana, you get to bold flavors and not West Louisiana, where we cook like we're cooking for our grandmothers.

So Bobby didn't stand a chance at all.

Chef Neema is from Sierra Leone, where she first learned to cook alongside her mother.

She went on to open Shreveport First West African restaurant and is known for her signature oxtail.

Richly seasoned with the bold flavors of her heritage.

We cook like we're cooking for our family.

We're not just cooking for tourists.

We cook from our heart, and this is who we are.

Not West Louisiana Shreveport-Bossier.

When a restaurant is proud to say it's a hole in the wall, it peaks my curiosity.

So I got to check out Herbie Caves.

It's been around since 1936, and it's home of the famous shrimp buster, Herbie Kay's legendary shrimp buster.

Okay, so I'm told the way to eat it is we had to squeeze some lemon.

And then the secret sauce.

Never dip the sandwich like this, but.

Oh.

Feel good.

Hats off to Herbie.

Kay's.

Shining light on northwest Louisiana has produced an extraordinary legacy of musicians who helped shape blues, country, folk and rock.

A story that leads me to mooring sport and a stop at Shiloh Baptist Church.

One of America's most influential folk musicians came from the piney woods of northwest Louisiana.

His name is Leadbelly.

He was born Heidi William Ledbetter in 1888, just outside of Mooring Sport.

Today, he's buried at the Shiloh Baptist Cemetery here in port, and he's known for his powerful voice, his 12 string guitar, and a show that helped shape folk and blues.

Maureen's port was established in the early 1800s as a ferry landing along the Red River, where travelers moored their boats here, giving the town its name.

The historic Caddo Lake Drawbridge in Maureen's Port was built in 1914.

It's a vertical lift bridge, which means the center span would lift up, allowing tall equipment to pass through along Caddo Lake.

Now, here is an interesting fact.

During World War Two, soldiers trained to prepare for war.

The summer of 1941, Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George S Patton trained the red and blue armies to bomb the bridge, using flour sacks to prepare for battle.

I end my road trip in Keith Bill at Chimp Haven, one of the world's largest sanctuaries for rescued and retired chimpanzees.

We walk a path into the sanctuary, lined with photos of some of Chimp Haven's 300 residents, all given a second chance to do what chimpanzees are meant to do climb, forage, roam, play and live in social groups.

Chimp Haven was established in 1995 by Amy Foltz and Linda Brant, and they decided to make a sanctuary for chimpanzees because they were going to be retired from biomedical research.

So once biomedical research became a legal for chimpanzees in 2000.

That's when we decided to create this nice place for the chimps to come retire and basically get to do whatever they want to do every day, what we call the chimp life.

We stop to feed the chimp, careful to respect chimp havens visitor distance policy.

We do.

That's a chimp food bark.

So that kind of signals to them that I've got snacks for them as we drive through the sanctuary.

Every detail reflects the chimpanzees well-being, with spaces to roam and the freedom to choose how they spend their day.

We arrive at the Annenberg Pavilion, where a glass viewing area offers the closest public encounter with the chimps in their habitat.

I got to say, this is powerful.

I feel the connection.

You feel them and see them looking at you like looking into your soul.

It's powerful.

Yeah.

The chimps are amazing creatures.

They love to come up close to you.

They love to look right into your eyes.

And I always tell all of our visitors.

The more interactive you are down here, the more the chimps are going to interact with you.

Chimp Haven opens to the public for Discovery Days in the spring and fall, and private tours by appointment, offering visitors a rare chance to witness this extraordinary sanctuary up close.

God's country RV Resort and Camp resides 15 minutes outside of Shreveport, inside the Soda Lake Wildlife Management Area.

I felt like a pioneer is staying in a modern day playground complete with a jumping pad, boat rentals, swimming pools, and Wi-Fi.

Accommodations range from RV sites to this luxury log cabin.

You can trade four walls for an indigenous experience and a tip.

It's an authentic version of glamping.

Here's my takeaway from my time in Caddo Parish.

I began on the cinematic waters of Caddo Lake.

Followed the region's oil legacy, stood on stage where music legends were born.

Tasted the soul of north Louisiana and connected with chimpanzees.

Given a second chance.

How to perish is a land rich and natural and cultural resources, one that invites you to slow down, look closer, and discover what's been here all along.

LA 64 is provided by office of the Lieutenant Governor, Billy Nungesser.

Keep Louisiana Beautiful and the Louisiana Office of Tourism, and by the National Heritage Area.

The Saint Landry Parish Tourist Commission.

Northwestern State University.

And by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.