By Jessica Gorman
In July 1920, an interesting ad appeared in the Webster Signal. It announced the organization of the Consumers Co-Operative Co. of Minden. While it outlined plans for the business and the construction of a very large building in downtown Minden, the primary objective of the ad was to sell stock in the company.
The image included with this column was featured in the ad as a rendering of the building they intended to build. In terms of Minden, that building was massive. It would have easily been the largest building in town and was planned for the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets on the site currently occupied by the Civic Center. In January 1920, Roy Hazenfield, a real estate broker in Decatur, Illinois, bought several lots in the area. Frank Suffern acted as attorney-in-fact on behalf of Mr. Hazenfield. A week and a half later, a quit claim deed was filed transferring the property to Mr. Suffern.
Frank Suffern was also from Decatur, Illinois. In 1902, several men from Decatur organized the Roanoke Rice Milling Company near Jennings. Mr. Suffern moved to Jennings to manage the company. By December of that year, the organization of the Suffern Brick & Grain Co. in Houston was announced. Suffern was looking for investors. It seems that company never materialized and it was only a short time before he returned to Decatur where he sold pianos and had dealings in real estate. Reportedly, he also aspired to manufacture his own pianos.
Over the years, Frank Suffern tried his hand at many different businesses in Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas. Nothing seemed to stick. Problems also seemed to follow him, sheriff’s sales, lawsuits, disputes with city officials, an arrest. His story reminds me a lot of Minden’s founder Charles Veeder.
By 1919, Frank Suffern was back in Louisiana. First at Boyce where he seemed to be dealing in real estate. Newspaper ads claimed he was “financial agent for one of the largest life insurance companies in the South” but the company was not identified. Meanwhile, he sets his sights on Minden. An oil news article in the Shreveport Journal claims that Suffern planned to build a rail line from Minden to the Homer oil fields to provide both passenger service as well as transportation for supplies to the oil fields. Several questionable claims are made in the article including that Suffern had large land holdings in Webster Parish. I find no evidence of any land purchases before January 1920 when Roy Hazenfield buys the Minden property and transfers it to Frank Suffern and nothing to indicate he ever owned any property outside of Minden.
In July, Frank Suffern advertised his new business, the Consumers Co-operative Co., to be organized in Minden. The building was to extend 210 feet along Broadway and was to be three stories tall. It was to include a 60-room hotel, garage, 1,000 seat movie theater, and eight stores available for rent. The remaining space would house a large department store, Consumers Co-Operative Co. To occupy the stores for rent, he hoped to attract a drug store, jewelry store, cash & carry grocery store, ladies ready-to-wear store, a barber shop, and a hardware store. The store fronts would be plate-glass and the ceilings were to be stamped metal. The building would include a vacuum cleaning system and have its own power plant, water works, and ice plant. Frank Suffern had big plans and yet that ad is the only mention I find of the Consumers Co-Operative Company of Minden anywhere.
The ad also named the men who were to serve as officers of the company. Frank Suffern would be president and general manager. J.M. Davis of Hattiesburg, Mississippi was to be secretary-treasurer. I have not been able to identify Mr. Davis. The ad claims he had graduated from “a prominent agricultural college,” had been teaching for several years, and was farm advisor for Forrest County, Mississippi. Just which college he graduated from is not disclosed. C. Ray Widick was to serve as first vice-president. He is identified as purchasing agent for Suffern-Hunt Cereal Mills of Decatur. His employment at the mill checks out as he was listed as a bookkeeper. Finally, Charles A. Laudermilk of Atlanta, Georgia was to be vice-president. He was said to be a clothing merchant. All indications are that he worked as a clerk in a gentleman’s clothing store. The ad positioned each of these men as more prominent than the evidence seems to indicate. I also have found no other suggestion they had any mutual dealings.
The Suffern family didn’t stay in Minden long. They lived in and operated the Park Hotel on the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets. In 1924, Frank Suffern built a new hotel on Sibley Road near the Louisiana & Arkansas Railway shops. Today, the lot where it was located is between Hamburger Happiness and Mercy’s Closet. This hotel, the Southland Hotel, included between 16 and 20 rooms and three stores on the first floor.
I haven’t quite decided what I think about Frank Suffern. I have lots of questions, but no solid evidence of whether his business dealings were legitimate or not. In the least, I think he may have been a lot like Charles Veeder. Both men seem to have been always looking for the thing that would make them successful and they both seem to have struggled to find it.
(Jessica Gorman is Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, President of the Minden Cemetery Association, and an avid genealogist.)