Not exploration, but what the heck.
I generally don't shoot cemeteries (you can only take so many shots of tombstones), but I really like this place. The LSUS History Club (yeah, I'm that much of a geek, hush) has joined up with one of our professors to map this cemetery and start cleaning it up. Thursday was our first day out, and I took my camera along just to get a few shots of our folks working in case someone wanted to post them on our board or something. The place actually ended up being really interesting.
Star is the oldest black cemetery in Shreveport, dating back to the 1880's. It has been officially closed for decades and has fallen into disrepair. It gets mown occasionally, usually the day after Dr. Joiner has spent a weekend surveying and setting out stakes to mark boundaries, thus causing him to have to do the work all over again once the stakes have been chopped off to ground level.
The most striking thing about the place is a massive pile of tombstones near the northwest corner of the cemetery. Dr. Joiner informed us that after we map the marked graves, we have to go back to each quadrant and search for the unmarked graves because many people's tombstones have been removed and thrown into the pile.
Unfortunately, the cemetery isn't associated with a church, nor the city, so no burial records exist. We can't identify who lies where and replace the stones, but we've been toying with the idea of raising money to put up a memorial for those whose graves are no longer marked.
While we were mapping our first cell, an incredibly irate man whom none of us had seen before showed up. Dr. Joiner took him off to the side and they talked for what seemed like forever and a day. The guy was obviously pissed that we were there, and we were seriously worried for a minute there that he might get violent. Dr. White (our History Club sponsor) had been in the conversation for a while and finally came over to fill us in. The guy turned out to be from the Star Cemetery Preservation Society. Looking at the place, you'd never guess such an organization existed. Apparently he wasn't happy with what we were doing; why someone from a preservation society would be mad at us for trying to, ya know, preserve the place is beyond me. Dr. White also informed us that the pile of tombstones was the work of a sexton hired by the preservation society to keep up the place. Ironic, no?
They apparently worked out a plan, kind of, but until we get the situation with Star smoothed over we've had to shift our focus to Oakland Cemetery (site of the mass grave from the yellow fever epidemic of 1873; 1,000+ people).
Enough of my rambling. Here are the few photos I managed to take.







Yes, he's wearing LSU-colored crocs. Don't hold it against him, haha.
I generally don't shoot cemeteries (you can only take so many shots of tombstones), but I really like this place. The LSUS History Club (yeah, I'm that much of a geek, hush) has joined up with one of our professors to map this cemetery and start cleaning it up. Thursday was our first day out, and I took my camera along just to get a few shots of our folks working in case someone wanted to post them on our board or something. The place actually ended up being really interesting.
Star is the oldest black cemetery in Shreveport, dating back to the 1880's. It has been officially closed for decades and has fallen into disrepair. It gets mown occasionally, usually the day after Dr. Joiner has spent a weekend surveying and setting out stakes to mark boundaries, thus causing him to have to do the work all over again once the stakes have been chopped off to ground level.
The most striking thing about the place is a massive pile of tombstones near the northwest corner of the cemetery. Dr. Joiner informed us that after we map the marked graves, we have to go back to each quadrant and search for the unmarked graves because many people's tombstones have been removed and thrown into the pile.
Unfortunately, the cemetery isn't associated with a church, nor the city, so no burial records exist. We can't identify who lies where and replace the stones, but we've been toying with the idea of raising money to put up a memorial for those whose graves are no longer marked.
While we were mapping our first cell, an incredibly irate man whom none of us had seen before showed up. Dr. Joiner took him off to the side and they talked for what seemed like forever and a day. The guy was obviously pissed that we were there, and we were seriously worried for a minute there that he might get violent. Dr. White (our History Club sponsor) had been in the conversation for a while and finally came over to fill us in. The guy turned out to be from the Star Cemetery Preservation Society. Looking at the place, you'd never guess such an organization existed. Apparently he wasn't happy with what we were doing; why someone from a preservation society would be mad at us for trying to, ya know, preserve the place is beyond me. Dr. White also informed us that the pile of tombstones was the work of a sexton hired by the preservation society to keep up the place. Ironic, no?
They apparently worked out a plan, kind of, but until we get the situation with Star smoothed over we've had to shift our focus to Oakland Cemetery (site of the mass grave from the yellow fever epidemic of 1873; 1,000+ people).
Enough of my rambling. Here are the few photos I managed to take.







Yes, he's wearing LSU-colored crocs. Don't hold it against him, haha.
