by Wesley Harris
As a child, I knew Shadow Glen Farm before I knew the word “conservation.”
To me, it was simply a magical place north of Ruston—a place of muscadines, good fishing, and deer slipping through the trees, and buffalo moving across the pasture like something out of an old Western. It was the kind of place a child never forgot, partly because it seemed too unusual to be real and partly because its owner, Glen L. Shadow, had made it that way on purpose.
My father worked for Glen Shadow and his brother Hale Shadow for a time at the Ruston Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Like many working men of his generation, Dad also picked up extra money where he could, and some weekends that meant going out to Shadow Glen Farm to bushhog, repair equipment, or help with whatever needed doing. While he worked, I explored.
I collected muscadines. I fished in the lake. I watched the buffalo. I remember the farm as a place where land, water, animals, trees, and people all seemed to belong together.
The harmony was no accident. One newspaper article described Shadow Glen Farm as “a conservation farm that is prettier than a picture,” with rolling green slopes, fine trees, springs, lakes, pasture, wildlife, and carefully planned soil conservation work. Shadow reportedly said he had never owned a piece of land that he did not leave in better shape than when he got it.
Like much of North Louisiana, Shadow Glen had felt the effects of decades of cotton farming. Shadow converted depleted fields into productive pasture planted in Bermuda grass, lespedeza, clover, and Dallis grass. He terraced the land, limed the soil, protected timber, and reforested worn acreage. He selectively cut timber rather than stripping the land bare.
He grew grass and trees as deliberately as another man might grow cotton. His registered Shorthorn cattle harvested the grass, and he took great pride in that herd, which he shipped to several states and even Mexico. But the cattle were only one part of the larger design. Shadow Glen was pasture, timber, lakes, springs, wildlife refuge, and working farm all at once.
The wildlife made the place unforgettable. Buffalo roamed there—seven at one point—and they were among the farm’s most striking sights. Shadow had bought three buffalo because of his deep interest in preserving an animal about to disappear from North America. Over time, the herd grew, even producing newborns on the farm.
The deer were just as important. During the cotton years, deer had mostly vanished from north Louisiana. Shadow brought them back to his land, raising them under permit and protecting them behind fences. Visitors might see 25 or more bounding through the woods. Some became tame enough to feed from his hand. He supplemented their winter forage with corn and oats. He knew their habits well enough to joke, or perhaps complain, that they loved his pecan trees, pears, and apples as much as the corn.
Shadow’s idea of conservation was not merely practical, it was protective. When foresters once asked if they might hunt squirrels on the place, Shadow reportedly told them they could hunt all they wanted—but not to bring guns. When rabbits damaged young pine seedlings, he preferred buying more seedlings than killing the rabbits.
That spirit helped define Shadow Glen. The farm was not just land improved for profit. It was land restored for life.
There were birds, too—pheasants, quail, cranes, even peacocks. There were fish so tame they came to the bank to be fed when Shadow drove down to the lake with bread.
Glen Shadow loved dogs as much as he loved wildlife. Behind his Bonner Street home stood a complex of pens housing rare and unusual breeds. At one time, he owned 56 canines. He imported Bernese Mountain Dogs from Switzerland—the first brought into America—including a female that had received high European honors. He also imported collies from England, owned little tailless Belgian Schipperkes, and kept Shetland sheepdogs.
His interest in unusual breeds dated back to World War I. While stationed in Europe, he became acquainted with one of the keepers of the dogs at Buckingham Palace in London, a connection that would prove significant years later.
That war almost took his life. Shadow nearly died and later credited a French woman with nursing him back to health and saving his life.
During World War II, amid fears that German bombing might threaten Buckingham Palace, Shadow was asked to care for the royal dogs. They were dispatched to Ruston for safekeeping. By the time the war ended, the dogs were five years older, and the complexities of safely shipping them back to England led authorities to ask Shadow to keep them permanently.
My own first pet came from Mr. Glen. That toy terrier made the man and his farm personal to me in a way the buffalo and deer could not. Among all the animals he owned, it was a tiny dog that left the deepest mark on me. I still think of “Buttons” often.
Shadow’s interest in animals had deep roots. He once said the farm “went back to when I was a kid” and that, as a boy, he had been interested in anything that breathed. He had dreamed of such a farm long before he built one.
His life had taken him through several places before Ruston. Born June 13, 1893, Glen Shadow came from a family that had worked in nursery and fruit tree cultivation. The family eventually moved south, and Glen’s path brought him to Ruston, where he became associated with Coca-Cola and later built Shadow Glen into a conservation landmark. Brother Hale joined him when Glen asked for his help in running the company.
The Ruston businessman was also part of a broader conservation movement. He helped originate the “Keep Louisiana Green” program, and one organizational gathering was held at Shadow Glen Farm. He protected timber, kept fire out, built terraces, improved pastures, and surrounded his farm with miles of fencing. Even the fence was unusual: old Model T frames were used as posts along sections of the farm.
Shadow Glen was not open as a tourist attraction. Shadow kept it locked, not because he was unfriendly, but because open gates could mean escaped animals or damaged work. Friends and visitors were welcome by appointment, and those who came found a man eager to talk about conservation in almost any form.
Looking back, I understand now what I could not have fully understood as a child. Shadow Glen felt magical because it was rare. It was not simply a pretty farm. It was a restoration project, a wildlife refuge, a demonstration of soil conservation, a pasture system, a timber preserve, and a boyhood dream made real.
When I watched the buffalo, gathered muscadines standing on top of Dad’s truck to reach the vines, or fished while my father worked nearby, I was seeing the result of decades of intention. Glen Shadow had taken tired land and given it back its abundance. He brought back grass and trees where cotton had worn out the soil, deer where cultivation had wiped away the woods, and buffalo where no one expected buffalo to be.
For a child, it was wonder. As an adult, I came to see something more. Glen and Hale Shadow’s deep faith was reflected in the way they treated both the land and the people around them. Their conservation work was not simply practical; it was an act of stewardship.
Shadow Glen Farm was conservation ahead of its time. In ways both visible and lasting, the Shadow family helped shape Ruston and Lincoln Parish for the better.
