The Jan. 10, 1954 crash of a Grumman Mallard amphibious transport on the south shore of Wallace Lake, between Caddo and DeSoto parishes in northwest Louisiana, had a profound and lasting impact on Shreveport and the nation.
The airplane was one of two craft returning from a weekend duck-hunting excursion to south Louisiana. Among the ten men killed that night, after the airplane's flight surfaces iced over in freakish cold wet weather, were the founder of a major national oil transmission company, leaders of a regionally renowned department chain, major capitalists and financiers who had done much to develop Shreveport suring its greatest period of growth, from World War I to just after World War II, and the founder of Braniff Airlines. Also killed were the pilots, two seasoned combat veterans of World War II, one US Army Air Forces, the other Navy Reserve.
The Shreveport Times reported extensively on the crash and the loss to the city and region. This site offers scans of the articles published that day, with the permission of the current publisher of the paper.
January 11, 1954.
January 12, 1954.
January 13, 1954.
January 14, 1954.
January 15, 1954.