Morgan Hotel, aka Brown Bomber Hotel
Also known as the Stonewall Hotel, the Morgan Hotel, at the corner of Lafayette and Sixth Street, provided traveling African Americans with comfortable lodging. Thousands of soldiers, Black and White, came to Louisiana for training before they were shipped overseas during World War II. The training, known as the Louisiana Maneuvers, brought thousands of Blacks to north central Louisiana, and the Brown Bomber was one of very few hotels open to Black clientele. Soldiers who ventured to Natchitoches frequented the hotel, and the Brown Bomber nickname may have originated from the color of the soldiers’ uniforms.
Paul Morgan, whose family owned the hotel, remembered the Brown Bomber:
I just have good memories of it. Inside the hotel we were a close-knit family…. You see, we have to keep in mind that during those days, that was the only place – the only hotel, so to speak, that Black people could come, because … we weren’t permitted to – we couldn’t go to any other hotel…. I remember all kinds of people coming here. I don’t mean criminals, but I mean so far as social levels. From professional people down to folks who maybe just cut pulp wood or something like that. Common labor and all kinds….
Hotel, 2007; Michael Fontenot