History Corner: Revisiting Downtown Shreveport's Washington Youree Hotel

One of our favorite old buildings that used to be in downtown Shreveport is the Washington Youree Hotel. It sat at the corner of Edwards and Travis Streets, where the Louisiana Tower Capital One Bank building is now. Just looking at the architecture of this incredible old building takes us back in time.

We’ve uncovered many, many old pictures of the Washington Youree and Captain Shreve Hotel that show what life was like back then. Here are some really cool old pictures from the outside and inside.

We always get excited when we come across any old pictures or negatives of the Washington Youree Hotel but we never expected to come across images of what went on behind the scenes there! We found some of these negatives in the Jack Barham collection and colorized them to bring them to life!

Jack was an incredible photographer who, according to his sons, Richard and Ed, spent many days at the Washington Youree Hotel meeting with and photographing celebrities when they came to town as well as photographing many other events there.

As you can see in these photos, he even captured images of the men and women who made the hotel operate so smoothly. We always wondered what went on behind the scenes and now we get a glimpse!

We would love to know the names of the men and women who are pictured here. Because of their hard work, the hotel guests were able to enjoy one of the best, if not the best, hotels in town at the time! Photos courtesy Northwest Louisiana Archives at LSUS Jack Barham collection. Hope you enjoy!

To watch the Twin Blends video visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-yjnMHp1Ys .

History Corner is produced in partnership with Mark and Mike Mangham of Twin Blends: Northwest Louisiana History Hunters .

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: History Corner: Revisiting Shreveport's Washington Youree Hotel