C.E. Byrd High School - Shreveport, LA (The Infamous Catacombs)

3201 Line Ave.

Shreveport, LA 71104

32.480412,-93.745716

www.cebyrd.com 

            When Clifton Ellis Byrd, Sr. first arrived in Shreveport in 1892 the city was in desperate need of an educational system. With a humble salary of seventy dollars a month, Byrd would rent out two rooms of a YMCA building and establish the first public high school. The first year’s enrollment garnered seventy students and the need for a larger school was needed so the school moved to the old Soady building on Crockett Street. After another move in 1899, the Caddo Parish School Board, now ran by its newly elected superintendent, C.E. Byrd, it was decided that a large permanent school finally be built. Construction would begin in 1924.
            In 1925, the honorably named C.E. Byrd High School was complete. To this day, it remains the largest and oldest high school in Shreveport. Home of the Yellow Jackets, C. E. Byrd High School is now a science and mathematics magnet school that has seen thousands upon thousands of students walk through its antique hallways. Although I have never been inside C.E. Byrd High School, I can relate to attending a school of such age.

            I graduated from Avoyelles High School, home of the Mustangs, built in 1927. It had survived floods, hurricanes and just about everything else that time had to throw at it. There was definitely a unique smell to the building and it was almost as though you could feel the history inside. It was either that or the foot long rats that lived under the building. In one of the most hilarious moments of my school life, we started hearing a huge commotion coming from the cafeteria. Assuming it was a fight, we ran to the side door to get a glance at the brawl. As soon as we approached the door, it swung opened and a rat came running out. This was no ordinary field rat. Believe me when I say this thing had to have been born and bred on the grounds of Chernobyl, as this mutated creature was the size of a full grown cat! What made the scene even more hilarious was that as the rat fled for safety, the lunch lady was in hot pursuit, chasing it away with a large spoon. We joking said, “Well, there goes tomorrow’s ratatouille!”
            With a school as old as C.E. Byrd, it is only appropriate that years of urban legends and even haunted stories have culminated within these bricked walls. However, this high school seems to have a bit more than your run-of-the-mill old school building may have. Any search online for haunted locations in Shreveport or books regarding the city’s hauntings and you are likely to always come across C.E. Byrd High School quite early into your expedition.
            There are two main legends that are the genesis for all the haunted stories at the high school.

The first seems to have a little less merit than the other. On the spot where the current gymnasium is built, there used to be an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It has long been rumored that in the school’s

Photo courtesy of KTBS showing the former pool.

infancy, a female student drowned here. The pool was later filled in with concrete and built over. Although the pool did exist, there is no legitimate evidence of a drowning ever taking place there. Regardless, the story has been passed down from each alumnus to the next.
            The second tale holds a little more credibility, as the events have been verified with local records. Those who have been within the high school claim the basement to be an extremely eerie place. Appropriately nicknamed the Catacombs, the dank and musty sublevel is a maze of passageways that make for the perfect ghost story. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, this portion of the school was actually used by the JROTC as a makeshift firing range, where cadets would practice with low-powered .22 caliber rifles. Mind you this was well before the days of school shootings and the whole gun-control craze that has been completely blown out of proportion. I can remember in the 1980’s bringing cap guns and candy cigarettes to school with no problem. Today, that sort of act would make national news.
             In October of 1962, the JROTC instructor, Master Sgt. Will Stubblefield, who was an enlisted member of the military that happened to work on-site, was cleaning the rifles when he fell victim to an accidental discharge and was shot in the left side of his face. Of course, as tragic as the story was, apparently it was not good enough for the storytellers and gore hounds of the student body.

News article, courtesy of KTBS, showing Sgt. Stubblefield's
death as accidental.

Many have elaborated the story, claiming that the instructor was a veteran of the Korean War and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. According to legend, he would ultimately flip out one day and take his own life in the basement. Obviously, the latter of the two stories make for a much more intriguing tale.
              Staff of C.E. Byrd has long claimed the school, primarily the infamous catacombs, as being haunted. Those who have the courage to embark down to the basement claim to have heard disembodied footsteps, as if someone was following them. When they would turn around, no one was there. Also, strange lights have been seen moving through the school at late hours of the night. Several people who have witnessed the phenomena can best described it as balls of light moving through the building. One particular individual stated that she initially thought several of the classroom lights had been left on but the longer she watched, the lights would move and change luminosity.
             The full truth behind the events that took place at C.E. Byrd School may remain a mystery. As every year passes, truth blends more with fiction and it is hard to differentiate the two. It is like that game we all played as kids, where one person would start a sentence and whisper it into someone’s ear. That person would then whisper the same sentence into someone else’s ear, only adding a little to the phrase. By the time the message was relayed to twenty or so people, you had quite an elaborate and creative statement. Such is the case with many of these local tales. Sort of reminds me when my wife finds one dirty fork in the sink and yells, “What are all these dirty dishes doing all over the place? I just cleaned!” Elaboration is one hell of a trickery that can look very different depending on if you are the giver or the receiver. Or in my case, the cleaner or the mess-maker!