re: Olive St Bistro in Shreveport is burning down

There is a great book by Gary Joiner called Lost Shreveport and one of the chapters is about brewing. We all know that prohibition was enacted nationally in 1921, but local governments were allowed to do whatever they wanted from the beginning. Well due to the river and the rail lines we had at the time, Shreveport had a ton of breweries and by all accounts we were poised to become the Milwaukee of the south.

well the teetotalers and religious nuts got a prohibition movement going and when it went to the ballot, they stuffed the ballot boxes in the rural areas of the parish and outlawed alcohol in Caddo Parish around 1908. It killed the chance of Shreveport really being a big deal and having an economic future. These two new breweries are the first ones since then to start to reclaim some local pride. I, too, am excited about it.