Downtown Shreveport in the 1880s was a pretty rollicking place to be. The Civil War was over, trade was booming, and cotton was king. Commerce Street was a busy wharf area loading and unloading goods from huge steam-powered packet ships bound for a state that had just recently been a foreign country – the Republic of Texas – and other far-flung locales.

Money was flowing, and downtown was home to not only commercial buildings but churches, opera houses and large, fine Victorian mansions.

Though filled with waterfront warehouses, downtown was not a place where the workers could afford to live. Homes of the working class were in a less desirable area, the low, mosquito-infested land just to the west of downtown known as St. Paul’s Bottoms. The Bottoms was a neighborhood of small, mostly singlestory rental properties sitting close together with almost no front set back from the street. For a time, it was home to the city’s officially designated Red Light District. Between 1903 until it was outlawed in 1917 the number of homes housing female boarders prostitutes in the Bottoms had grown exponentially.

When the neighborhood was originally developed, there was likely no thought that it would be important or that it would even survive. Though the history has become important, the survival of the remaining structures there is less certain.

In 1984, the entire neighborhood was put on the National Register of Historic Places in large measure due to the number of shotgun houses still in existence. The shotgun is a narrow rectangular residence, usually no more than 12 feet wide with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house.

They were reportedly given the name “shotgun” because if all the doors in the house were opened, pellets shot into the front door would safely travel out the back. When the Historic District was established, there were more than 560 shotgun houses still there, representing what was called “Louisiana’s most important collection.” In the years since, many of these houses have fallen victim to fire, neglect and demolition. Through the efforts of the Norla Preservation Project, some of these last St. Paul’s Bottoms shotguns may be saved. Norla founder Kelly Rich had worked in historic preservation with Main Street programs in Grand Cane and Minden prior to moving to Shreveport, and her love of all buildings historic led her to a driving tour that would change her life. On a Sunday afternoon in April 2013, a row of deteriorated shotgun homes caught her eye. When she called the city and discovered the buildings were on the demolition list, she sprang into action calling the DDA, city and elected officials.

“The more you find out about the style and history, the more appealing these houses become,’ Rich said. “There had to be something else we could do with them, something different. I started asking ‘What if?’ and ‘What do I need to do?’” The first thing Rich needed to do was to form a 501(c) 3 in order to make it easier for the city to work with her on the buildings. She is in the process of doing that. She needed to rally support, spread the word, engage other lovers of history and architecture and raise money. She has been doing all that and along the way has encouraged others to start sharing her dream. The six shotgun homes must be moved, so the city of Shreveport has offered land behind Millennium Studios for Rich’s “Baker Street Bottoms” project, state and national preservation groups are lending support, and businesses have expressed an interest in moving into the commercial shotguns, once rehabbed. Rich estimates the cost per building to move and rehab to be in the $65,000 range, so she is working to find close to $400,000. She knows it will be an uphill battle, but Rich is determined. In New Orleans, the homes have become so popular there is now a shotgun house tour, and she knows the same thing can happen in Shreveport. “Ninety percent of the people I tell about this project get as excited as I am,” she said. “This can happen.”

The Norla Preservation Project plans a fundraiser for the shotgun houses Oct. 18. Go to norlapreservationproject.com.

Liz Swaine is the executive director of the Downtown Development Authority. She can be reached at [email protected].