Hopewell Cemetery

Jan 10

Site Brief:

Founded: 1891, but likely before

Location: Shreveport, LA

Additional name(s): N/A

Affiliate group(s): N/A

History:

Hopewell Cemetery is an abandoned African-American cemetery located on a wooded and eroding land tract that also includes the likely site of the first Anglo-American trading post and steamboat port used by early settlers, native Caddo Indians, and free and enslaved African-Americans. Multiple landowners own the land, and the City of Shreveport has directed storm water runoff to empty in the wooded area. Several graves are broken, open, and not documented, and very difficult to survey/document due to the elevation and vegetation. There have many several parties interested in cleaning it up, and we've trimmed sections of it up here and there, but it needs a lot of support to truly restore the cemetery / potentially relocate some graves to higher ground. Dr. Gary Joiner at LSU-Shreveport believes there are likely earlier graves there and many more than have been documented thus far. There are two WWI veterans buried there and several members of one or two families who were instrumental in the Stoner Hill neighborhood of Shreveport.