Lydia Earhart

Kelly Rich and I first had coffee in the fall, and I didn’t know what I was in for.

Over morning coffee, she shared her passion of preservation. We sipped our drinks, as she spoke with such wonder and determination about preservation and its link to honoring history in Shreveport.

I do love history, but in that meeting, she spurred an enthusiasm in myself. Rich was honest and said Shreveport is behind the mark when it comes to preserving historic buildings. It would be a challenge but she mentioned we are already seeing great progress downtown.

Her first goal was set on saving the six shotgun houses on Peabody in Shreveport. Though she doesn’t have ties to any shotgun houses, she knows their significance to Louisiana history. As she spoke, I thought about all the benefits and what could become of the houses.

Though I had yet to see them. The cover shoot was the first time I saw the six houses in person. They were a little bit of a mess. Some columns were broken, porches had holes, missing wood, and somewhere in there, looking past the decrepit nature surrounding them, I saw some potential. It may have been the faded bright colors around the houses alluding to their future.

During the shoot, Rich was like a mother to the faded homes. These six were her babies, and throughout the past year she spoke about them everywhere she went – speaking at Makers Fairs, Cohab and even out-of-town events to gain state interest and support. She even admits to carrying around photos of what they would look like after the rehab.

Her enthusiasm about the project really is contagious, as she has been told. She never gets tired of speaking about the six, though she said the shotguns were her first of many preservation projects that she has her eye on.

It was easy to see Rich has a strong love of older buildings, even owning in a Highland home built around the 1930s. The structure and materials are strong and will outlive newer construction, Rich said. Plus, imagine the history and who might have lived there.

As she stood beside the half dozen houses for the photo, she represented someone who was strong enough to say these shotguns matter and we need to save them.

“Just because [a building or a structure] has outlived it’s original purpose, it still has value,” Rich said.