Today, I wanted to track down the oldest building still in use in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I think I’ve found it.
Naturally, our city’s supposed oldest building is located in downtown Shreveport. That’s fitting considering our downtown area is full of history and iconic buildings. I’ll be honest, when I started on this journey, I predicted our oldest building would either be a house outside of downtown Shreveport or one of our many buildings located in the heart.
This building can be found on Spring Street in downtown Shreveport, and despite a few renovations and an overall new-look, it’s been standing tall in our city for over 150 years! If you haven’t guessed by now, of course I’m talking about the building where our iconic Spring Street Museum resides.
The building was actually constructed in 1866 and was home to it’s first company, Tally’s and Asher’s Banks. The original bank vault still exists to this day.
How perfect is it that our historic town’s oldest building is now a museum? I thought that was pretty cool.
I will say that if you google, “Oldest building in Shreveport”, you’ll only come across our Spring Street Museum, however, it’s not 100% clear if it’s indeed proven to be our oldest building. On their website, they state to have “one of” our cities oldest buildings. So, if anyone out there knows of a building that was constructed prior to 1866 and still stands to this day, please let me know and I will edit this article.
For the ghost hunters out there, it’s worth noting that many Shreveporters and fellow-ghost hunters believe the Spring Street Museum is haunted. Hey, anything that’s been around this town for 155 years is bound to have some spirits roaming around.
