re: Baton Rouge nostalgia thread - old, forgotten businesses

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I only remember it being City National Bank, Louisiana National Bank, Bank One and then Chase.

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City National was never part of LNB until they were both taken over by Bank One.

LNB merged with Ouachita National Bank and both sunk under the weight of a bunch of bad real estate loans. LNB then spun off all the non performing assets into a zombie bank and rebranded itself as Premier. The same management team ran it into the ground again, at which point Bank One took over. Bank One later merged with Chase.

One thing has remained constant, whatever name it goes under, it's always been a shady as shite operation. We had some dealings with them at one time and I got a look at their back office operations. Their accounting practices were...creative, shall we say.

Also had Fidelity National Bank and later Bank of the South.

Milton Womack was an original founder of Sunburst Bank.

Just want to say props to the Backpacker.

Been around forever.

Has anyone mentioned the Paramount Theater on Third Street in downtown Baton Rouge. It was a converted live theater venue and had wonderful acoustics.

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City National was never part of LNB until they were both taken over by Bank One.

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Correct.

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LNB merged with Ouachita National Bank and both sunk under the weight of a bunch of bad real estate loans. LNB then spun off all the non performing assets into a zombie bank and rebranded itself as Premier.

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Not quite. The "bad bank" spin off was never accomplished because the junk bond market collapsed and the plan was to issue junk bonds to finance the spin off.

So "Premier Bank" (which included the former Louisiana National Bank, Ouachita National Bank of Monroe and First National Bank of Shreveport) muddled through the real estate collapse triggered by the oil collapse of the 1980's.

Finally around 1994-95 Bank One bought Premier Bancshares at 1.25X book value (which was a bargain price back then).

Bank One was headed by the nephew of Chuck McCoy who was the chairman of Premier Bancshares and had been the CEO of LNB when his brother, John McCoy, was CEO of City National Bank in Columbus, Ohio, which eventually became Bank One.

The devil worshippers on Frenchtown Rd

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Ollies Trolley

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Their hamburgers were so nasty even my dog wouldn't eat them.

KFC on Jones Creek

Lou Mac's was the original place in the Mason's Grill building.

Yes, I remember them, the dog, and an old black fellow who worked in the restaurant who would slip us 8 packs of little Millers through the back door. I was at the Piedmont Club when I heard the news about Jim Morrison's death. BTW, there was a set of girl twins at the PC who were absolutely smoking hot, but I cannot recall their names. They were a few years old than me.

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Ollies Trolley

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Where was this located?