Sam Caldwell

Samuel Shepherd Caldwell, known as Sam Caldwell (November 4, 1892–August 14, 1953), was an oilman who served as the Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, from 1934-1946.

Caldwell was the son of Samuel A. Caldwell and the former Alice Jeter. He was born and educated in Mooringsport in Caddo Parish.^[1] He also attended Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. For nine years he was employed by the Kansas City Southern Railway in the accounting and auditing departments. He worked seven years for Shell Oil Company, part of that tenure as the assistant superintendent of the land department. He was thereafter an independent oil operator. From 1932-1934, Caldwell served on the Caddo Parish Commission, then known as the police jury, the parish governing body.^[1] He was elected mayor of Shreveport in 1934, 1938, and 1942. As mayor, he worked to merge the municipal and parish boards of health into one entity and oversaw the stocking of Cross Lake, the city's water supply.^[2][3]

In 1944, Caldwell campaigned unsuccessfully for governor against former Shreveport Public Safety Commissioner (a position since abolished) James Houston Davis. His choice for lieutenant governor was State Senator Frank B. Ellis of St. Tammany Parish,^[4] who a decade later waged an unsuccessful challenge to U.S. Senator Allen J. Ellender. Caldwell received just under thirty thousand votes in the gubernatorial primary. Leander Perez, boss of the Louisiana Delta from Plaquemines Parish, endorsed for governor "either" Caldwell or Lewis L. Morgan of Covington, the seat of St. Tammany Parish. At the time, Perez had a personal dislike for Davis and outgoing Governor Sam Houston Jones of Lake Charles, who covertly favored Davis. Morgan was the gubernatorial running mate of former Governor Earl Kemp Long, who was seeking the office of lieutenant governor that year. Others who sought the governorship that year were State Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc of Abbeville in Vermillion Parish and U.S. Representative James H. Morrison of Hammond. Davis led the balloting and then defeated Morgan in the runoff election.^[5]

In effect, Davis and Caldwell had been city council members elected at-large in the early 1940s, when Shreveport operated under the city commission form of government, changed in 1978 to the mayor-council format.^[2] After he dispatched Morgan on the theme of "Peace and Harmony," Davis was unopposed in the general election, as was then the political custom in Louisiana. After a twelve-year hiatus, Davis returned to serve a second gubernatorial term from 1960-1964.^[5]

In 1914, Caldwell married the former Anna Pauline Owen of Monroe, Louisiana. The couple had one child, Betty Ann (born 1923). He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and the Masonic lodge.^[2] Caldwell died in Shreveport at the age of sixty and is interred at Greenwood Cemetery there.^[1]

For further reference, see Jerry Purvis Sanson, "Sam Caldwell's Gubernatorial Campaigns" in North Louisiana History (1987).^[6]

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