Henry Li

Background

Bridges was born in nearby rural Athens in Claiborne Parish but moved to Minden in 1907, where he operated a clothing store.

Career

He was first elected mayor in the Democratic primary in the spring of 1928, when Robert F. Kennon, then twenty-six and later the governor of Louisiana from 1952 to 1956, declined to seek a second two-year term. The position became four years in 1954 and is now filled in the fall of non-presidential years. Bridges was reelected on April 8, 1930, when he defeated Coleman Lindsey, later a state senator and the lieutenant governor in the abbreviated 1939–1940 term of Governor Earl Kemp Long.

In that contest, Bridges polled 519 votes to 402 for Lindsey.

Fort polled 709 votes to Bridges"s 437 in the primary held on April 12, 1932. In the primary election held on April 10, 1934, Fort was eliminated from the race, and Bridges then faced his eventual successor as mayor, David William Thomas, a former university professor, journalist, publisher, and lawyer, who was a native of Wales.

In the runoff election held on May 15, Bridges handily defeated Thomas, 624 to 377. In March 1936, Thomas in turn unseated Bridges, 736 to 682, to secure the first of his two consecutive terms in the office.After his defeat, Bridges returned to store keeping with the opening of a men"s furnishings business in the Webb Building in Minden.

Bridges was married to the former Mission Forrest Cobb (November 14, 1880 – December 18, 1947) of Athens.

The couple had two daughters, Mistress Helen Moss of Erath in Vermilion Parish, later Helen Gallien of Columbus, Mississippi, and Mary Elise Bridges, a former Webster Parish schoolteacher then living in Baton Rouge. Later, she was Mary Hilzim (1908–1988) of Minden, the wife of R. H. "Buster" Hilzim (1883–1961).

Henry and Forrest Bridges had four sons, Henry L. Bridges, Junior.

(1903–1962), who died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-nine. Forrest Lee Bridges (1912–1973), and Jack Clifford Bridges (1917–1977), all of Minden, and Lewell Bridges (1910–1980) of Shreveport.

He was sixty-five and a Methodist. He is interred beside family members at Minden Cemetery.

Son Lee Bridges was an inspector for the City of Minden and a former municipal sanitation superintendent.

Connections

opponent:

Mayor Connell Fort

Friend:

Toledo Bend Reservoir