re: The Capital One Tower in Lake Charles is no more. RIP

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Will definitely change that skyline

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That was the skyline.

Man, how cool would it be to watch a behind the scenes documentary about the implosion. Have one of the engineers explaining how the come up with the charge plan and what the strategy is.

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Local money ran off all the oil money / service industry that was setup to come in and chased it to lafayette area.

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I did not know that. That explains why my family moved from LC to Lafayette at that time (my dad is a now-retired petroleum engineer). I was a toddler at the time, and never thought to look into it as an adult.

Do you know why the local money people did that? Why did they let the refineries stay?

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was a toddler at the time, and never thought to look into it as an adult

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It was right after WWII. The Oil Center in Laffy was built then and further developed into the 1950's. Unless you are a boomer zero meaning to you

The refineries had pipelines from mostly the Eunice area and Shreveport area from WWII when they were built. There were oilfields all over the area. The most prolific per acre in the history of oil was Ged, south of Vinton and was still going strong 70 years ago

Not a boomer, born in LC in the mid-70’s, my immediate family moved to Lafayette from LC in the early 80’s. Thank you for the additional information. I’ve had trouble figuring out what was going on in that area at the time and didn’t know where to look.

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Not a boomer, born in LC in the mid-70’s, my immediate family moved to Lafayette from LC in the early 80’s. Thank you for the additional information. I’ve had trouble figuring out what was going on in that area at the time and didn’t know where to look.

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Lots of oilwell owning families in Lake Charles and there were indie oil companies in Lake Chuck too. The same families people blame not having off space in Lake Charles. WT Burton, then the Lawtons certainly had oilwells and owned Calcasieu Marine National Bank. Dresser Magcobar had a major barite crushing plant where the riverboat in Westlake is. Shiploads were imported and crushed there. Next nearest place was Galveston.

An uncle of mine in Laffy had 1/3 of a deal to with a German company to fund and a US subsidiary of a British company to buy a high purity barite mine in England and build a crushing plant at the north end of Kirkman in the early 1980's. The owner of the mine opted not to sell it at the last minute. The site had been a rice mill once upon a time owned by one of those supposed oil hating families (who had oilwells)

The OT is a goldmine of Louisiana history. I really appreciate everyone who is willing to share it. This fills in some gaping holes in my knowledge. Thank you!

I was in that tower once as a Hibernia/CapOne banker; sad its gone

The only tower demo I witnesses was the Fisher Projects tower (NOLA westbank) when my son was a boy. Awesome sight...but sad too.

I hope the LC site has plans for something


better at that location...

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One of my favorite hobbies is Cajun history, but I have not been able to find much about the LC area. If you know of any good books or have anymore knowledge to share about that area in the mid to late 20th century, I would be very grateful to hear it.

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Look up Lost Lake Charles by Adley Cormier. It was a solid read. Not much on Cajun heritage because I honestly don’t think it’s as rooted with Cajun culture as Acadiana, but it goes into some good detail about the area’s history.

Link to the book