History of
Hodges Gardens
Located in North Central Louisiana,
Hodges Gardens, the nation's largest
privately owned horticultural parkland
and wildlife refuge and is one of Sabine
Parish's most celebrated attractions.
It was founded by Andrew Jackson Hodges,
Sr., notable civic leader, oil producer,
conservationist and lumberman. Mr.
Hodges was born at Cotton Valley, Louisiana
on March 22, 1890, son of Floyd Crawford
and Adeline Reynolds Hodges. The Hodges
ancestors were among Captain John Smith's
company of early settlers of Jamestown,
VA. They moved from Virginia to North
Carolina, then to Georgia and later
to Cotton Valley. Mr. Hodges received
his elementary and high school education
in Webster Parish and later attended
Meridian Military College, a small
college in Meridian, Mississippi, no
longer in existence.
He began his career in merchandising
in Cotton Valley. Becoming interested
in oil and gas exploration in the early
1900's, he participated in the development
of the Cotton Valley, Sugar Creek and
Sligo oil and gas fields. In 1923 he
became associated with the Triangle
Drilling Co. of Shreveport, and in
1948 he acquired all of the stock,
combining it with his timber-growing
interests in Sabine Parish to form
A.J. Hodges Industries, Inc.
Hodges Gardens stems from a vast reforestation program and forest genetics research in the early 1940's by the late A.J. Hodges. A strong believer in conserving natural
resources in the production of oil,
gas and fresh water, Mr. Hodges also
became a member of the pioneering corps
of Louisiana men who recognized the
need to restore barren and cut over
forest lands. These men mobilized for the battle of "Southern Forestry" on land laid barren and worthless as a result of the "cut out and get out" philosophy of lumbermen in the first 20 years of the 20th century.
A.J. Hodges Industries purchased 107,000 acres of cutover land, mainly in Sabine and Vernon Parishes in 1937 and 1940.
In the early 1940's he put his lands
under an extensive timber management
and improvement program which
included planting approximately 39,000 acres of pine
seedlings and converting the entire acreage into a
managed tree farm.
Seedlings from superior seed trees
were used in the replanting, and experiments
were begun in forest genetics under
the direction of the Southern Forest
Experiment Station at New Orleans,
the Texas Forest Service at College
Station, Texas and Louisiana State
University. Work was aimed at a cross
breed of slash pine for straightness
and loblolly pine for toughness.
Selected for the arboretum was a
ridge running east to west just south
of Many which contained an abandoned
stone quarry. The site encompassed
4,700 acres and in 1951 it became the
Hodges Gardens Experimental Area and
Wildlife Preserve.
Mr. Hodges and his wife, Nona Trigg
Hodges, recognized the potential of
the old quarry and planned a unique
scenic garden using the natural rock
formations. Flowers were planted on
one level above another. Walkways were
laid and foot bridges built. Streams,
waterfalls and a 225-acre lake were
created to further enhance the overall
beauty.
Thus, Hodges Gardens became one family's
contribution to the preservation of
our land's natural beauty.
