THE INFORMER: LaGrange High School destroyed by fire

Published 5:29 am Saturday, January 3, 2026

Editor’s Note: This year’s Informer column will feature a treasure trove of historic photos from the American Press Archives and their significance to Southwest Louisiana.

The $90,000 LaGrange High School parish educational institution — only in its second year of operation at the time — was destroyed by fire on May 9, 1931.

“The conflagration was believed to have started in the chemical laboratory on the second floor of the building, in the southeast end,” according to that day’s morning edition of the Lake Charles American Press. “The brick, steel, and wood structure was only a shell after the flames had subsided. A part of the east wall had fallen and the other walls were leaning badly.”

The newspaper said central station firefighter scrambled to fight the blaze but fire plug connections were unavailable at that distance from the city. The school was located two miles outside of the city limits on South Street (the Prien Lake Road area of today).

The school had an enrollment of more than 600 at the time and was a consolidation of the schools of Prairie Lane, Three Island and Black Bayou, Burleson and the former four-room LaGrange school.

In 1903, Mesard LaGrange donated an acre for a one-room schoolhouse. A decade later, he donated nine more acres to expand the school. The new facility opened in 1929 and served the children of all grades in Calcasieu Parish.

Earlier in the year, the school was pronounced by the state high school inspector as “the best equipped small high school in Louisiana.”

Parish Superintendent H.A. Norton assured the newspaper on May 9, 1931, the building would be replaced and said construction plans would begin at the next school board meeting.

According to the May 11, 1931, edition, the superintendent had initially planned to dismiss the elementary grades and conduct the remaining two weeks of the school term for the high school department in the old four-room LaGrange school; “however, this intention was changed when it was decided to dismiss all grades of the school now and give a passing or a non-passing grade, as the case may be, to each pupil or student based on their daily average grade.”

Roy Deaton, chairman of the building committee, said the new school should be built to twice the capacity of the one destroyed.

“The original plan (for the destroyed school) was for a $37,600 building,” Deaton said. “After inspecting various schools in this and other parishes, it was decided that at least $75,000 was necessary and a bond issue voted for this amount. The school board advanced $15,000 bringing the total to $90,000.”

Deaton said the enlarged structure was fully occupied, almost from its opening.

“Considering the growth of that section of the community, with further prospects with the eventual construction of a concrete highway in that territory the new facilities must be twice that of this predecessor in order to take care of future requirements,” Deaton said.