Escape the city. Embrace the byway.

Tour the Towns

Caddo Parish
Listings
Caddo Parish

The Boom or Bust Byway paves its way through the charming towns north of Shreveport such as Gilliam, Vivian and Oil City. This route offers road trippers some great places to stop and experience the hidden landscapes of Louisiana’s Other Side. If the natural beauty of the lakes and parks aren’t enough, travelers will experience the community’s resilience to the fluctuating industry of oil and agriculture. Visitors can discover treasured stories in museums along the byway. Their locals’ way of life can be experienced in restaurants, festivals and events along the route.

Listings

Hosston

Big Mama’s Antiques and Restorations

Big Mama’s Antiques and Restorations sells industrial materials, salvage materials and electric offerings. They specialize in African American historical artifacts and have been featured on the Antiques Road Show and in the Antique Trader Magazine. Store hours are Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or daily by appointment.

6403 Dogwood St., Hosston, LA 71043
318-573-2127
https://goo.gl/nbgP6V

Boat launch and fishing pier

Big Mama’s Antiques and Restorations sells industrial materials, salvage materials and electric offerings. They specialize in African American historical artifacts and have been featured on the Antiques Road Show and in the Antique Trader Magazine. Store hours are Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or daily by appointment.

6403 Dogwood St., Hosston, LA 71043
318-573-2127
https://goo.gl/nbgP6V

Gilliam

Skydive Louisiana

Skydive Louisiana is a USPA certified Training Center Dropzone. The experienced staff members offer tandem jumps, sports jumps and more for one of the most memorable lifetime achievements.

10165 Vivian Airport Rd., Vivian, LA 71082
318-464-5867
https://goo.gl/W6g7TL

Thunder Road Raceway Park

Thunder Road Raceway Park is a state-of-the-art, motorsports facility featuring a 1/4-mile drag strip, sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) in Division 4.

5700 Thunder Rd., Gilliam, LA 71029
318-296-4466

Main Street Restaurant

Main Street Restaurant in Gilliam features “country cooking” favorites like chicken fried steak as well as fresh Gulf seafood options including fried oysters, boiled shrimp and more. Open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday-Tuesday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday-Thursday; and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday-Saturday.

12807 Main St., Gilliam, LA 71029
318-296-4400

Red River Cross Roads Museum

See how the early settlers of the surrounding rural communities lived through memorabilia and pictures. Located in Shreve Memorial Library branch in Gilliam, the library’s hours are by appointment only.

12797 Main St., Gilliam, LA 71029
318-296-4303
www.redrivercrossroadshistorical.org

Sunflower Trail and Festival

View the beautiful, blooming sunflowers at Sunflower Trail and Festival along Hwy 3049 in Gilliam. Afterwards enjoy crafts, entertainment, food, and family fun at the festival.

LA-3049., Gilliam, LA 71029
318-296-4303
www.redrivercrossroadshistorical.org

Dixie

DixieMaze Farms

Info Here

Old Cotton Gin

Info Here

Belcher

L’Evangeline Bed & Breakfast

Guests are welcome to come stay in a charming bed and breakfast located in a quiet, peaceful town full of oaks, pines and sunflowers. Belcher, Louisiana is a historic town surrounded by historic plantations, cotton fields, and the legendary KWKH radio tower of the Louisiana Hayride. The L’Evangeline is a remodeled, two-story southern home with a columned porch, featuring a full bench and porch swing.

228 Louisiana St., Belcher, LA 71004
318-518-6588
www.levangeline.com

The Wild Petunia

Info here.

Belcher Veterans Memorial

Info here.

Vivian

Allen’s Guide and Tour Service

Allen’s Guide and Tour Service offers half day and full day fishing excursions on Caddo Lake. Fishing Guide Mark Allen specializes in largemouth bass fishing and is a multi-FLW/BFL tournament winner.  Narrated tours of the lake are also available. Excursions by appointment only.

9691 Pelican Lodge Rd., Vivian, LA 71082
903-530-0611
www.caddolakeguideservice.com

Big Al’s Bar & Grill

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Cool Beans Coffee Shop

Experience a mellow, rustic atmosphere in the middle of Vivian’s downtown area. Cool Beans Coffee Shop offers a variety of drinks including cappuccinos, hot chocolate and other seasonal drinks with more than 10 different flavors including sugar-free options. Open 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday-Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday.

109 W Louisiana Ave., Vivian, LA 71082
318-936-9947
https://goo.gl/8Y9brZ

Louisiana Red Bud Festival

Families looking for fun should check out Louisiana Redbud Festival’s all-day events including music on the square, parade, food, and arts and crafts booths.

Vivian Townsquare, Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-3893
www.laredbud.com

Country Crow Antiques, Gifts and Collectibles Shop

Country Crow features antiques, gifts and collectibles.

126 West Louisiana St., Vivian, LA 71082
318-426-3775
https://goo.gl/5hVZz4

Chavo’s Mexican Restaurant

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Vivian Railroad Station Museum

Walk around and explore exhibits showcasing artifacts, photographs and more about North Caddo Parish’s railroad history at Vivian Railroad Station Museum.

100 Front St., Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-5300

Outlaw BBQ

Outlaw Bar-B-Q in Vivian serves barbecue plates, sandwiches, steaks and more. Open 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday.

959 S. Pine St., Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-4622
https://goo.gl/FQxat7

Country Christmas Festival

Celebrate Christmas in the country. This annual Country Christmas Festival promises to entertain guests with delicious food, entertainment, crafts, and more.

100 Front St., Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-5300
www.vivian.la.us

Vivian Black History Festival and Parade

Celebrate at Vivian’s Annual Black History Festival and Parade. Visit historical sites like the Vivian Railroad Station Museum and more. Enjoy great music, food, family fun, and good ole Southern hospitality. Don’t miss the  “Shop Til U Drop” vendors Expo. This festival is held the 3rd Saturday in February each year.

Vivian, LA 71082
318-935-0376

Ark-La-Tex Speedway

Dirt track races are held seasonally on this quarter-mile, semi-banked clay oval track.

13035 Boyter Ln., Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-3470
www.arklatexspeedway.net

General Wholesale

Need info.

13035 Boyter Ln., Vivian, LA 71082
318-375-3470
www.arklatexspeedway.net

Oil City

Earl G Williamson Park

Earl G. Williamson Park, a 40-acre park, features a public boat ramp, a 450-foot fishing pier, paved parking areas, restrooms with showers, RV camper hook-ups, areas for tent camping, extensive picnic facilities, two playgrounds, volleyball nets, a baseball field, tennis courts, and a swimming area.

11425 LA Hwy. 1., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-7139
https://goo.gl/26SHhj

Oak Alley Farms Outlet

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Gusher Days Festival

Gusher Days Festival celebrates the north Caddo Parish oil industry with an archery tournament, fishing tournament, music, food, and entertainment.

11411 LA-1., Oil City, LA 71061
318-470-3446
www.gusherdaysfestival.com

Louisiana State Oil & Gas Museum

Learn how the discovery of oil shaped the history of Caddo Parish through photographs, films, a shot gun house, and life-size dioramas at Louisiana State Oil & Gas Museum.

200 S Land Ave., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-6845
https://goo.gl/pngf6C

Restor-A-Book

Restor-A-Book handles a wide variety of restoration and binding work including Bibles, books, genealogy papers, church hymnals, bulletins, newspapers, tabloids and much more.

126 South Land Ave., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-6800
www.restor-a-book.com

Christmas on Caddo Fireworks Festival

Christmas on Caddo Fireworks Festival has been bringing Christmas cheer to the people of north Louisiana for nearly three decades. The all-day affair includes the presentation of Miss Christmas on Caddo pageant winner, live band, concessions, clowns, Santa, and fireworks over Caddo Lake.

100 Front St., Vivian, LA 71082
318-631-0182
www.christmasoncaddofireworks.com

Caddo Outdoors Bait and Tackle Restaurant

Caddo Outdoors Bait and Tackle offers travelers the opportunity to enjoy popular Southern dishes from chicken fried steak to red beans and rice, fried catfish, meat pies, and more. Visitors can indulge in more than five different flavors of homemade pies or treat themselves to an apple or peach fried pie. The company motto is ‘Biscuits, Burgers, and Bait.’ You can build your own breakfast, fill up with a burger basket, order a good-sized salad, grab a slice of pie, and get your bait and tackle all in one stop. Caddo Outdoors Bait and Tackle is open 5:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Wednesday; 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday and Friday; and 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.

118 Ferry Lake Rd., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-8008
goo.gl/AyMuvU

La Herradura Mexican Restaurant

La Herradura cooks up fresh Mexican and seafood including fajitas, fish, enchiladas, nachos, taco salad, and more. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday-Sunday.

326 Hwy. 1., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-8008
https://goo.gl/aaQrrD

Mooringsport

Historic Caddo Lake Drawbridge

In 1914, as modes of transportation progressed, the Historic Caddo Lake Drawbridge in Mooringsport was built to replace the ferry. This vehicular bridge illustrates the unique “Vertical Lift” design which allows the entire center span to lift to allow tall oil equipment to pass through, especially Gulf Oil Company’s pile driver which was used for the first off-shore oil drilling.  This 100-plus-year-old landmark is the last surviving Waddell vertical-lift bridge in Louisiana and is open to the public as a pedestrian walkway. It has been listed on National Register of Historic Places since 1996.

500 N Croom St., Mooringsport, LA 71060
318-929-2806
www.caddolakedrawbridge.com

Mooringsport Cypress Festival

The Mooringsport Cypress Festival features live entertainment, arts and crafts, food eating contests, children’s activities, parade, and more.

Higgins St., Mooringsport, LA 71060
318-469-6282
https://goo.gl/BPPXaV

Longwood General Store

Longwood General Store is a country store that features a small dining room and kitchen serving Southern classics like chicken fried steak and over-sized hamburgers. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, this restaurant is well-known for steaks. The restaurant serves steaks on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only. Open 24 hours a day, Tuesday-Saturday and 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday-Monday.

3502 Hwy. 169., Mooringsport, LA 71060
318-929-2231
https://goo.gl/aQN4qQ

Drift Inn Landing

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Plantation Gourmet Coffee Company LLC

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3502 Hwy. 169., Mooringsport, LA 71060
318-929-2231
https://goo.gl/aQN4qQ

Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake is a 25,400-acre lake and wetland located on the border between Texas and Louisiana. It is the largest natural fresh water lake in the South.

11425 Hwy. 1 North., Oil City, LA 71061
318-995-7139
www.caddoparks.com

Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter Gravesite

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Country Haven RV Park

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Blanchard

Down N’ Dirty Dogz

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Heads N’ Tails LLC

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Poke Salad Festival

The Poke Salad Festival kicks off with a $1,000 treasure hunt, carnival, food, children’s activities, and live entertainment.

Pinehill Rd., Blanchard, LA 71009
318-309-2647
www.pokesaladfestival.net

Bossier Parish
Listings
Bossier Parish

Take a deeper journey along the Boom or Bust Byway through the pastures of Bossier Parish into calm, quiet towns including Benton and Plain Dealing. These towns offer lots of treasures that are worth a drive starting with fresh summer produce at the Benton Famers’ Market all the way to the historic, picture-perfect mural stashed away in Plain Dealing on Palmetto Street. On this route, road trippers will discover homemade burgers, water recreations in the local bayou, a petting zoo, historic homes built in the early 1900s, and more hidden gems along the Boom or Bust Byway.

Listings

Benton

Benton Farmers’ Market

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Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District

Cypress Black Bayou is a full-service recreation area that includes a marina, swimming, camping, cabins, fishing piers, zoo, and much more. Cypress Black Bayou has a meeting room that holds up to 50 people if a small group is looking for a retreat.

135 Cypress Park Dr., Benton, LA 71006
318-965-0007
www.cypressblackbayou.com

Heritage Village

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Benton Christmas on the Square Festival and Parade

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Cypress Zoo

Cypress Zoo is located on seven acres inside Cypress Black Bayou Recreation Park encompassed by oak, pine, and sweet gum trees.  Built in 1998, Cypress Zoo has provided visitors with a superb learning environment while heightening their understanding and respect for the animals and the surrounding area.  The zoo staff continues to educate  guests while providing them with memorable experiences.

135 Cypress Park Dr., Benton, LA 71006
318-965-0007
https://goo.gl/rr3g4Q

Plain Dealing

Giles Snack Shop

Gile’s Snack Shop has been in business for many decades serving old-fashion home cooked meals in Plain Dealing. Open 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday-Friday.

210 E. Palmetto St., Plain Dealing, LA 71064
318-326-4088
https://goo.gl/JYYvWC

Ana’s Place

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Early 1900’s Homes

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Tatter’d, Torn & Reborn

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Rita Sanders Keoun Memorial Library

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Webster Parish
Listings
Webster Parish

In Sarepta on Hwy. 371, right next to the Town Hall, is an Interpretive Kiosk, depicting the history and culture of the area. Sarepta is named after Sarepta Carter, a woman who donated a large Bible to the local Baptist church upon its completion in 1869 in exchange for it being named after her.

Award winning country music star Trace Adkins grew up here and sang in a local church choir and performed in churches as part of a gospel quartet before finding fame and fortune in Nashville. Some of the songs he made popular are Dreamin’ Out Loud, Every Light in the House and Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone.

Sarepta has seen its share of booms and busts. It boomed in 1898 when the Louisiana and Arkansas railroad came through the town and again when International Paper built a sawmill just up the road in Springhill. The population then dwindled as people moved closer to the mill and in recent years it has dwindled even more as the labor force at that mill has been greatly reduced.

Listings
Bayou Dorcheat

Need info.

Germantown Colony and Museum

Have you ever dreamed of living in utopia? Some folks from Germany acted on such dreams and established a utopian colony just south of here in the 1800s. It is another boom and bust story, but on a smaller scale. The story of this group and their way of life is told at The Germantown Colony and Museum. Three of the original buildings remain and the museum has many interesting tools and other artifacts from the colony.

120 Museum Rd., Minden, LA 71055
318-965-0007
www.boomorbustbyway.com

Forests and Fields

Farms prospered on fertile land along the Red River. Cotton, for example, grew well there. Plantations and well-placed gins, thanks to the labor of hundreds of field hands and then sharecroppers, produced thousands of bales of cotton.

Closer to Sarepta, in what is still appropriately referred to as the Piney Woods, it was the combination of forests and flowing water that attracted the first of several generations of loggers. Axes and saw blades, in roughened hands, shaped and continue to reshape regional landscapes, triggering boom and bust cycles all too familiar to local residents.

Sawmills, like their agricultural cousin, the cotton gin, became centers of rural commerce and employment, growing larger and more mechanized with the passage of time. Tall, straight pines emerged from the mills as lumber for oil derricks, railroad ties, siding for boomtown homes, paper and boxes.

The Cox Family

Just 10 minutes south of Sarepta is the town of Cotton Valley, hometown of the Grammy Award winning Cox Family. The Cox Family was formed in Cotton Valley in 1972 and is best known for their recording, “I Am Weary” for the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” In 1994, after more than 20 years together as a band, the Cox Family won a Grammy Award for their work with Alison Krauss on “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow”. The Cox Family began performing at fairs and church socials. Willard Cox worked in the oil fields of Cotton Valley and played the fiddle and sang in his spare time. His son and daughters began joining their father to perform. While they sang both country and bluegrass, they made their reputation singing gospel.

Lumberjack Grill

Need info.

26026 Hwy. 371., Sarepta, LA 71071
318-994-2018

Claiborne Parish
Listings
Claiborne Parish

As it passes through Claiborne Parish, the byway rolls across gentle hills lined with miles of forest and an occasional small town. It is those towns that add a certain worldly flare to the region. When parish towns have names like Athens, Homer and Lisbon, it should come as no surprise that the parish courthouse in Homer is a fine example of Greek Revival architecture and is the only antebellum courthouse in Louisiana that has been in continuous use since its construction in 1859. The region also built a reputation for fine schools.

Listings
Lake Claiborne

The 6,300-acre lake is eight and a half miles long and has 40 miles of shoreline. Here you will find another place where outdoor recreation is a booming industry. Fun experiences and memories are being manufactured by the thousands! Fishing, swimming, birding, boating, and waterskiing are just some of the activities you can participate in here. The park has ten modern cabins and 86 improved campsites if you’d like to spend the night, and a nature center where you can learn to see more clearly and completely the beauty of the park.

Kel’s Cove Marina

Offers fishing, cabins, camping, convenience store and marina.

3455 Highway 146., Homer, LA 71040
318-927-2264
www.kelskove.com

Pleasure Point Marina Bar and Grill

Offers food, beverages, wi-fi and lakefront gasoline. It also offers two cabins with lakefront access. There are 30 lakefront full hookups and 20 non-lakefront with full hookups.  Enjoy the homemade “Lake Claiborne” burger, a favorite within the community. A full bar is now available with frozen beverages.

775 Peterson Rd., Homer, LA 71040
318-927-6536
www.pleasurepointmarina.org

Itinerary: Spend a Day Taking the Ultimate Road Trip

Map
Itinerary List
Map

Insert Map Here.

Itinerary List

Stops Along the Byway: Louisiana Boardwalk Outlets and Downtown Shreveport. Leaving the Boardwalk, the itinerary will have the following town highlights and landmarks:

  1. Louisiana Boardwalk Outlets, Bossier City
    Artwork: Shopping Bags
  2. Benton Highlights
    Benton Farmers’ Market
    Heritage Village
    Cypress Zoo
  3. LANDMARK: Cypress Black Bayou Rec & Water Conservation District, Benton
    Artwork: Water with cabins, tents and boats
  4. Plain Dealing Highlights
    Giles Snack Shop
    Tatter’d, Torn & Reborn
    Mural on Palmetto Street
  5. LANDMARK: Red River, Between Plain Dealing and Gilliam
    Artwork: Body of water
  6. Gilliam Highlights
    Skydive Louisiana
    Thunder Road Raceway Park
    Main Street Restaurant
  7. LANDMARK: Black Lake Bayou, Between Gilliam and Vivian
    Artwork: Body of water
  8. LANDMARK: Cotton fields, Between Dixie and Gilliam
  9. Dixie Highlights
    L’Evangeline Bed & Breakfast
    Dixie Maze Farms
    Dixie Cotton Gin
  10. Vivian Highlights
    Country Crow Antique Shop
    Railroad Station Museum
    Outlaw BBQ
  11. Oil City Highlights
    LA State Oil & Gas Museum
    Restor-A-Book
    Caddo Outdoors Bait and Tackle Restaurant
  12. LANDMARK: Oil Pumps & Caddo Lake, Between Oil City and Shreveport
    Artwork: Oil pumps, Body of Water with fishing poles and playground
  13. Downtown Shreveport
    Artwork: Skyline
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