by Wesley Harris
Today, Interstate 20 carries travelers nearly 1,540 miles across the South. It begins in West Texas and crosses Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia before ending at Interstate 95 near Florence, South Carolina.
But for me, the most interesting part of I-20’s history is much closer to home.
Next time you approach one of the U.S. 167 bridges over I-20 in Ruston, note the date stamped on the concrete parapet end post: 1959. That was when construction of I-20 was getting underway in Louisiana. Keep that date in mind.
On April 23, 1960, officials dedicated a 9.7-mile section of the new interstate between Ruston and Choudrant. Contemporary accounts called I-20 one of Louisiana’s “Highways of the Future.” It was one of the first sections of interstate opened in the state.
But Northwest Louisiana had a conspicuous missing link for years. I remember it. As a teenager, when my family traveled from Ruston to Shreveport to visit relatives, we could take the interstate west only so far. Near Minden, in front of the army ammunition production plant, we left I-20 and continued toward Shreveport on U.S. 80. That put us on a very different kind of highway. And it took us through the Bossier Strip.
My Aunt Ed lived in a neighborhood just outside the gates of Barksdale Air Force Base. When my mother took us to visit her, there was one rule: we had to leave for home before dark. My mother would not drive us through the Bossier Strip at night.
During the daylight hours, the Strip looked like a “haphazard collection of filling stations. eating houses, and typical motels on a Louisiana highway,” according to a 1963 San Francisco Chronicle article. But after dark, the writer said, when “the rainbow-colored, plastic-encased, rocket-shaped neon lights burst into all their crazy-crystal glory, Bossier City is a dazzling three-mile strip of booze, girls, and ear-jarring nightlife. This is when the fronts of bars and clubs look like Christmas on the Fourth of July and where the inside is like New Year’s Eve.”
It was easy to understand why the Strip had a shady reputation. Along U.S. 80 was a succession of nightclubs, backroom casinos, cheap motels, pawn shops, and other establishments catering to travelers, servicemen from nearby Barksdale, and anyone looking for nightlife. The same San Francisco writer described it as the glitziest place between Miami Beach and Las Vegas, a gaudy collection of “show bars, cocktail lounges, twist palaces, limbo floors, shake sheds, quake joints, & shiver pavilions.”
The Strip’s reputation was not merely the product of exaggerated memories. In a 1977 federal court case involving the Black Knight Lounge, a judge described that portion of Highway 80 as containing numerous nightspots and being “commonly known as the ‘Bossier Strip.'” The court also noted the Black Knight and other establishments employed scantily clad female dancers who encouraged patrons to purchase drinks for them.
The Strip had another reputation as well: organized crime. And that is where the story of Interstate 20 gets considerably more interesting.
While I-20 was being completed elsewhere, a substantial gap remained between Minden and Bossier City. Part of I-20 through Bossier City had opened by the mid-1960s, but the interstate east of the city remained unfinished. The remaining Northwest Louisiana gap was not completed until the mid-1970s.
The newspapers occasionally included vague references to Mafia activity on the Strip. Later, during my law enforcement career, I heard the explanation more than once: the Mafia had kept I-20 from being finished.
Think about that chronology. Interstate construction around Ruston was underway in 1959, and the Ruston-Choudrant section opened in 1960. Yet some 15 years later, motorists still could not drive I-20 continuously across Northwest Louisiana.
And the missing pavement happened to be the section that would allow motorists to bypass U.S. 80 and the Bossier Strip.
The story was that people with organized crime interests in the Bossier Strip used political influence to delay construction. Their reason was simple: money. As long as travelers had to leave I-20 and use U.S. 80, they were funneled directly past the Strip. Complete the interstate and that captive audience disappeared.
It makes a compelling story, but you won’t find a highway department record, legislative investigation, court decision, or contemporary newspaper account proving organized crime deliberately delayed construction of I-20 to protect the Bossier Strip.
Still, the organized crime connection to Bossier City itself was not simply folklore. Material presented in Congress during discussions of organized crime in Louisiana identified Carlos Marcello, the powerful New Orleans-area crime boss, and alleged his interests extended into Bossier City, including illegal gambling and other vice.
That does not prove Marcello or anyone associated with him delayed an interstate highway. But it helps explain why the story sounded believable.
The highway gap was real. The Strip was profitable. Allegations of organized crime in Bossier City were real. And completing I-20 allowed motorists to bypass the Strip.
Was the delay simply the result of the ordinary complications of building an interstate highway, or did someone with money and influence help keep traffic flowing down U.S. 80 a little longer?
I can’t prove the latter. But after all these years, I understand why the story has survived.
Was the delay simply the result of the ordinary complications of building an interstate highway, or did someone with money and influence help keep traffic flowing down U.S. 80 a little longer?
