Saturday, March 22, 2014

Day 6 - Tour of Monroe, Louisiana

Hell-o, we are Ray & Lorre Dorris, #7


This is day 6 of our journey thru the beautiful state of Louisiana.
We leave behind the Red River running thru Shreveport and Bossier City where we spent 2 nights at Diamond Jack's RV Park, but one thing we won't miss is all the train noise, Shreveport and Bossier City are serviced by several Train companies.............
 















Our first stop was in Gibsland, Daffodil Capital of Louisiana and also made famous because it's where Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow met their demise...

 


Every year near the anniversary of the ambush, a "Bonnie and Clyde Festival" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, off Interstate 20 in Bienville Parish. The ambush location, still comparatively isolated on Louisiana Highway 154, south of Gibsland, is commemorated by a stone marker that has been defaced to near illegibility by souvenir hunters and gunshot. A small metal version was added to accompany the stone monument. It was stolen, as was its replacement.

 











Our first tour of the afternoon started at the Biedenharn Coke Museum and Gardens and what a treat........Joseph Augustus Biedenharn (December 13, 1866 - October 9, 1952) was an American businessman credited in the summer of 1894 with having first bottled the soda fountain drink, Coca-Cola, at his wholesale candy company building in VicksburgMississippi.

 


In 1894, Joseph A. Biedenharn, a country businessman in Vicksburg, Mississippi and owner of the Biedenharn Candy Company, made a world changing decision. In order for his customers outside downtown Vicksburg to have Coca-Cola, he had his brother Herman put Coca-Cola into Biedenharn bottles, making the Biedenharn Candy Company the first to ever bottle Coca-Cola. 

In 1913, Joseph Biedenharn moved to Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where he purchased a small bottling plant to produce Coca-Cola. The Biedenharn home in Monroe is now a tourist attraction, the Biedenharn Museum and Gardens at 2000 Riverside Drive. It is visited by 25,000 to 30,000 persons per year. The original Biedenharn Home is furnished as it was when the Biedenharns' daughter, Emy-Lou, a contralto opera singer prior to World War II, resided there until her death in 1984. 

As we all know, coke started out as a syrup for medicinal purposes...














The gardens were absolutely beautiful.....




















Now off to Landry Winery to finish off our day of touring with a wine tasting, winery tour that included a ride thru the vineyard on a cotton wagon with a stop at the wine cellar.    




       
               
                      













 Meet the owners, the Landry's


The evening was finished off with one of 12 concerts they hold each year……….Bring a chair or blanket, pack a picnic basket or buy your meal there, purchase a bottle of their very tasty wine and sit back and enjoy the music....

 






The end of another beautiful day in Louisiana 



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