In 1971, John B. Lagarde was a member of the Board of Directors of Commercial National Bank. They requested he furnish them a sketch of his personal history, sticking mainly to the facts, but embellishing it as much as he wished with "whatever strikes your fancy." He sent the following:
JOHN B. LAGARDE
April 6, 1971
I was born February 8, 1903 at the corner of 17th and Leighton. Dr. Huger made the delivery with Aunt Edith McMillian Sproull assisting. My mother, Lilly McMillian Lagarde was also born in Anniston in 1874. James and Jenifer Ward Noble, my mother's grandparents, came over from Cornwall, England early in the 19th century and settled in Redding, Pa. A few years later they moved to Rome, Georgia, where they operated a foundry and furnace. During the Civil War their business was destroyed by the Yankees because they were making cannons for the Confederacy.
Due to the large deposits of brown iron ore, they became interested in the area from Talladega to what is now Anniston. My Aunt Mary Noble, a sister of Sam Noble, used to tell me of trips to this area with her brother, and how he talked of what a beautiful spot for a city. The present City of Anniston is now located in this spot.
My father's family came over from France after Napoleon's defeat, and settled in New Orleans. My grandfather, Ernest Lagarde, was Professor of languages at Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmetsburg, Md. For 50 years, speaking and teaching 7 languages. My great grandmother Lagarde's family the Dimitrys, instituted the first public school system in the U.S. in New Orleans.
My father was interested in the sugar business, and came to Anniston originally looking for lime, which was used in the production of sugar cane. He settled here around 1900 and began the production of lime in the area and later built one of the first hydrating lime plants in the south at Lagarde, Alabama, which is just south of Glencoe on the L&N R.R.
My early recollections began when we were living at Crowan Cottage, and later we moved to the new home my father built between the Sam Noble home and Judge Willet's home. In back of these homes was an all-wooded area for miles and there is where I grew up. Squirrel, rabbit, 'possum and wild turkey were plentiful and lots of quail. From my earliest recollection I had always had a great desire to go to Africa and India, and 50 years later, I did.
My life as a hunter, began with a Daisy air rifle at the age of 6, and when I was 9 my father gave me his double barreled shot gun. I was required to have an older person accompany me for a year, and then I was on my own. When I was not in the woods, I was spending a good portion of my time with my two Aunts, Mary and Elizabeth Noble. I was very fond of history and adventure stories and they would read to me by the hour. They also kept their pantry well supplied with ginger snaps and scones and served tea every afternoon at 4:00 o'clock.
My academic endeavors started at Noble Institute at 11th & Leighton, where I went from the first through the sixth grades. From there I went to Alabama Presbyterian College, which was located where the Junior High School is now. I went there for the next 6 years except for part term at Sewanee Military Academy. I came home after the prep school burned and returned to the Alabama Presbyterian College for the rest of the school year.
The next year I went to Marion Military Academy and stayed there until Christmas. There was just too much confinement and discipline for me, so I told my parents either A.P.C. or work, and they let me finish A.P.C. My career as a scholar was a flop. Private schools in those days were not up to the high standards of today. I was good in history and physics…..only fair in other courses. My only interests were in outdoor life – hunting and fishing, mechanics and building, until I was 15 and then the opposite sex began to interfere with this life.
At 17 I built, after many trials and errors, what I called a "Wind Wagon". It was a cut-down old Maxwell chassis with a model T. Ford engine attached to a propeller. This machine was very noisy and dangerous, and since Quintard and Leighton were not paved, I blew dust and leaves all over the place. Finally, Dr. Wikle, the Mayor, declared this vehicle a nuisance, so I took the propeller off and lowered the engine into its original place and made a cutdown sports car. This "WindWagon" was the first such vehicle ever built and several years later popular Mechanics Magazine had a feature story on a similar vehicle, built in France, saying it was the first.
In 1914 my father bought what was then considered a large farm. This farm was located 2 miles west of Alexandria. We spent summers there and I had many happy days hunting and fishing. My father told me I should have some responsibility and suggested I take on an acre of cotton. He agreed to furnish the seed, fertilizer, and plowing. I was to chop and pick. I was to pay for these supplies when the cotton was sold. The crop got off to a good start and I told my father that Mr. Tolbert Ford, who ran Anniston's only sporting goods store, would sell me a case of shot gun shells for $25.00 and talked him into advancing me on my cotton crop, which he did. The boll weevil arrived in Calhoun County that summer and my crop was a failure, but I had a season's supply of shells.
I married Virginia Duke in 1921. Mr. Duke was a local contractor and I went to work for him as a labor foreman. One of the first jobs I worked on was re-building Sellers Hospital on 5th and Leighton. I learned to finish concrete, lay brick and erect steel, along with being a general flunky. Around 1925 the City of Anniston let a contract for approximately 5 miles of concrete sidewalk. I bid on this and received the contract. For the next six years I did street paving, sewer and water work in Anniston, Talladega, Leeds and surrounding area. While doing this work I saw the need for a ready-mixed concrete plant, and built one on W. 9th St. and Lagarde Avenue. There was no local sand available that would meet specifications, so all was shipped from Montgomery.
From the early days of Anniston there had been a small amount of drift sand recovered in the area where my present plant is, at 30th & Wilmer. Drift sand is the sand that has been washed out of the soil and deposited by run off from heavy rains. During the early depression days of 1930 there was some dry mining by hand, where the gravel was screened from the dirt and sand. This gravel, which is very high in silica, was sold to Swann Chemical Co., which soon became Monsanto. The easy way to get material was soon gone and need for washed, cleaner material was growing. I visited this area and brought several buckets of the screenings to my concrete plant on W. 9th, and put a water hose in the buckets and washed the dirt out. I found that the dirt was only about 35%of the volume and the sand was bright and sharp and would make a good concrete and mortar sand.
The Anniston Land Company owned this area, so I went to see William A. Davis, an old friend. We arranged a lease on a royalty basis of 10 cents per ton. I built a small washing and screening plant. Water was the big problem. There were several wet weather springs in the area, but as dry fall came on, my water supply vanished. I had to re-design my operation so that I could clear up and re-use my water. This I did after several failures. The operation was going fairly well, but the depression grew worse and building stopped and then the banking holiday came. I made it through this period with the aid of several grocery stores, who would take I.O.U.'s for groceries for my few employees and the few dollars in cash I was able to get. I struggled on for a few months and then found that Mr. Tom Hamilton was interested in taking over the operation. He took it for the debts and I helped him get started and made a few improvements. Mr. Tom and I became very good friends during this few months.
My brother, Eugene was living in Mobile, and Virginia and I were divorced, so I went to Mobile for a visit, which lasted for quite awhile. I came back home and got a job as a carpenter's foreman on the WPA project, that was concreting and walling Snow's Creek. As the work was going by the Old Mill (Anniston Mfg. Co.), Fred Tyler, who was superintendent of the mill told me he was going to build several warehouses, and was going to curb and gutter part of the mill village streets, and the job was mine if I wanted it. I started back on my own, then and several years later, Mr. Tom told me he had mined out all the surface material and was going to close the sand and gravel pit and I could have it back. I had kept up with the operation and knew there was some deep material that would have to be mined hydraulically, and had experimented with this kind of mining on a small sand pit on Ben Dorman's farm near DeArmanville. I started over again, and after several near failures, finally succeeded in developing a system with which I pumped 1,000 gallons of water under high pressure against the hard sand and clay walls of the pit, washing the sand to a dredge pump, which pumped the water, laden with sand, dirt and rock, up to the screening and washing plant, where the materials were separated from the water and the water and mud flowed into a round tank where the mud settled to the sloping bottom and the water overflowed around the edges. The water was pumped back and the process was repeated. This deposit was unusual in its size. The vein ran in a NE-SW direction with a large egg-shaped deposit between Noble St. and what is now Quintard Boulevard. I had several wells drilled, and found the sand and gravel went 400 ft. deep at least. This material lay in between clay at about 60 degrees angle on both sides. I was only able to mine down about 100 ft., as the caving of the sidewalks began to endanger the cemetery, Quintard Blvd. and my plant buildings, so the mining operation was stopped about 1065.
When the mining was stopped, I bought sand from other areas – some as far away as Montgomery. Crushed limestone was used instead of gravel. The concrete block material was changed from sand and gravel to slag from Gadsden steel mills and then to limestone, as the demand for lighter weight block grew. We began to use light weight shale that has been run through a kiln and expanded like pop corn. We have three concrete plants to serve the area, namely, Oxford, Anniston and Jacksonville. Last year we built a new and automated block plant with a present capacity of 12,000 8" block per day. The plant is designed for two machines, and we hope to install the second in the near future. This covers the sand, gravel and concrete part, which is the bread and butter of the business.
I had not lost my love of construction, and my first project in that field was a 6 unit apartment building on Lorraine Ave. or Rocky Hollow Rd., which I built in 1938. In 1942 I finished McMillian Terrace Apartments and 4 years later built Lagarde Apartments. Then in 1965 I built Berry manor, which I named for my present wife, whom I married in 1943.
I had always wanted a lake and land to hunt on. I had no desire to farm as I had not forgotten my acre of cotton and my father's problems with his farm. In May of 1939, a friend of mine, Ellis Harvey, told me of a good location for a lake 4 miles East of Piedmont. I bought 100 acres, and cleared up a swamp and soon had a beautiful 40 acre lake and a log cabin. I was very happy with the good fishing and hunting and wanted no part of farming. In those days the health dept. thought the mosquitoes bred from lakes such as this and required all undergrowth to be kept clean cut. This was quite a problem, so I went to the county agent for advice and he suggested a few cattle would help and that is when I made my big mistake. I soon got interested in the cattle and as they increased, I bought more land and my problems compounded. That one cow grew to over 600 brood cows and the 100 acres is now over 4,000. That was not enough, so I built a feed lot and feed out 1200 head of choice beef each year.
I have not fished in my lake for years and have difficulty finding time to hunt, all because I took the county agent's advice.
My big game hunting started in 1946 when Betty and I went to Quebec for moose. I did not own a high powered rifle, and none had been made during the war years, so I borrowed one. I could only get a few rounds of ammunition, so I only shot it several times before leaving. When I saw my first moose late one afternoon when my Indian guide was paddling me through a shallow lake, I must have gotten moose fever; at any rate, I shot under him and that was the end of my first big game hunt.
I had my own rifle next year and things began to improve. Betty and I made trips to British Columbia in 1947-48 and 50. These trips were pack horse trips, ranging from 2 weeks to 6 weeks in 1950. On that trip, we each had an Indian guide, one horse wrangler and a cook, along with 18 horses. This was a beautiful trip. We went up the Inland Passage from Vancouver to Wrangler, Alaska, where we boarded a little river boat for the 3 day trip to Telegraph Creek, B.C. We had very good luck each getting a grisly bear, moose and mountain goat. I also got 2 nice Stone sheep, black bear and mountain caribou. We made several more trips, all the while that old desire to go to Africa was growing and in June, 1954 we made the great adventure. Kenya was our destination after a visit to Italy. I had a new .300 - .375 Weatherby Magnum and Betty had a .270 Weatherby. Ker and Downey were our safari outfitters and Andrew Holmberg was our professional hunter and guide. We hunted on the N.F.D. and collected 25 different species of animals. It was a wonderful trip and we both loved it, so we made arrangements for a safari in Tanganyika the next year with Andrew Holmberg. Andrew had been raised in Kenya and today is considered one of the top, if not the top professional hunter in Africa. Andrew taught me many valuable things about African hunting that have been of great help in my various shikars and safaris.
In 1957 Betty and I went to India for a shikar, the equivalent of an African safari. We made it an around the world trip. We collected tiger, panther or leopard, gaur and many other Asian species.
In 1958 I went to Alaska for polar bear, then back again the next fall for Dall sheep, barren ground caribou, Arctic grisley.
In 1959 Betty and I made a most interesting 60 day safari to the Moyen Congo, Ubangui and Chad. We were about the first Americans to hunt this area of French Equatorial Africa. We hunted from the forests of the Congo to half way through the Sahara Desert. We collected many fine and unusual species. This desert area of the Chad has been closed for several years to hunting, and it is doubtful it will ever be safe to hunt there again due to the desert bandits.
Our next safari was in 1960 when Mary and Joe Woodward went with us to South West Africa for a month and then across the continent to Mozambique for another month. We collected many beautiful animals. From then on, the areas of the world where I hunted were rougher and not suitable for women, so I began to hunt with Dan Maddox of Nashville. We made trips to Somalia, Ethiopia, Wet Pakistan and Hunza, Iran, Uganda, Columbia, So. America, Honduras and our most recent hunt in Mongolia, which was the most successful and interesting.
In all, I have made 38 Big Game hunts, 15 of which were to Africa, 4 to Asia. I have collected 98 different African game animals, 18 Asian and 18 North American.
In 1963 I received the Weatherby International Big Game Hunting Trophy, which is given to the outstanding Big Game Hunter of the year. I also received at that time, the President's People to People Award. President Eisenhower started this to help promote better relations throughout the world through sports.
