Caching in Lake Charles 4/10/2010

This morning we were off into Lake Charles, LA for a morning of caching and hopeully some history. Well we did get lots of caches but again not much history. We had hope when our first cache was located at Bilbo Cemetery which is the oldest cemetery in Lake Charles and is located on the east shore of the lake, near the present-day Civic Center. It is located on the site of a former military outpost, Cantonment Atkinson, which was occupied in the late 1820's and early 1830's.
In 1832 Thomas BILBO of Mississippi bought the land and moved his wife, Ann
LAWRENCE, and their children to southwest Louisiana. The former mess hall of
the military post, a sturdy log building, served as the family home. Bricks
from the old military camp formed the early tombs and markers in the cemetery.
The earliest grave in the cemetery, and probably in the town, was that of
Margaret BILBO, the youngest daughter of Thomas and Ann LAWRENCE BILBO.
However, there is no marker to indicate the exact site of her grave. Another
of the BILBO daughters married John Jacob RYAN, who is often called the
"father of Lake Charles". RYAN died on 17 Dec 1899, and is known to have been buried
in the Bilbo Cemetery, but his grave is also unmarked.
Although is has been estimated that over 200 pioneer residents of Lake Charles
have been buried in the old cemetery, most of the graves were either unmarked
or their markers were lost, have deteriorated or were destroyed by vandals. Today only about 20 or 30 marked graves remain.
Time, weather, the flooding waters of the lake, vandalism and desecration, in
addition to neglect and lack of regular maintenance have all taken the toll on
the historic old Bilbo Cemetery and have all but destroyed the graves. We found the cache and were on our way.
Unfortunately that was the last historic or interesting cache we found. Some of the sites we found caches were Veteran's Memorial Park on a tank, a law office, near City Hall, YMCA, a hairdressing shop, an open field, an abandoned gas station, near the very lovely Lake Charles Courthouse and near the Immaculate Conception Church. The courthouse was very lovey as well as the church.
A strange thing has happened to us the last few days here as we have been caching. There has been 12-15 different caches that we have been unable to find in the last few days and we didn't think anything of it. One of the first caches we found today we couldn't get the top off of it and again didn't think much of it. A few caches later we found another one we couldn't get the top off.....strange. Then after a few more we found a bison tube cache with nothing there except the top half. Seems as if some has offended someone or someone has it out for the local cachers here and is vandalizing there caches. The 2 we couldn't get the tops off evidently had the tops glued on with Super Glue, some took the bottom half of the bison tube but didn't bother to take the top and all those DNF's we have had obviously were stolen. Boy glad we don't have any enemies here. It seems as if they have been targeting one guy here who looks like a typical Southern redneck that someone doesn't like.
Well after we finished we drove back to the coach and had lunch, did logs, showered, had dinner and watched TV. Oh one thing I forgot to tell you about. I cooked some chicken for the dogs the other day and left it on the table to cool. I went to shower and Mom went for a walk. Well I came back and Raggs under the steering wheel with a guilty look on his face and I knew immediately what had happened. he climbed on the bench and on the table and had a feast on 2 or 3 of the small pieces of chicken. The little devil and as I said the look on his face was priceless when I caught him.
Well until tomorrow we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick