Arthur Thomas Colten, known as Tom Colten (October 21, 1922 – December 5, 2004),[1] was a Louisiana newspaperman and politician from the 1950s to the 1990s who rose from a small-town mayoralty position to head his state's Department of Transportation and Development under three governors from both parties. Colten was also active in the slow process of establishing a viable Republican Party in his adopted state.
Louisiana is a state in the Deep South region of the South Central United States. It is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
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Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The state's name, Michigan, originates from the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". With a population of about 10 million, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area, and is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies.
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution. As the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States of America was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775.
In 1947, Colten moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1948, he relocated to Bogalusa in Washington Parish in southeastern Louisiana, and became business manager and stockholder of the Bogalusa Daily News, since a Wick Communications publication. He left that position in 1955 and relocated to Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, to become publisher of what became the daily Minden Press-Herald, which at the time consisted of two weekly papers, the Minden Press on Mondays and the Minden Herald on Thursdays. Major (not a military title) dePingre' was the editor of the papers at the time. As publisher, Colten was active in civic affairs and became well known in the community. He was initially in partnership in Minden Newspapers with Charles A. Nutter of New Orleans but purchased Nutter's half of the company on January 29, 1962. Nutter became the executive secretary of Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri.[2][3]
Indiana is a U.S. state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U.S. state on December 11, 1816. Indiana borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, Kentucky to the south and southeast, and Illinois to the west.
Bogalusa is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,232 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Washington Parish and is also part of the larger New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area.
Washington Parish is a parish located in the interior southeast corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana, one of the Florida Parishes. As of the 2010 census, the population was 47,168. Its parish seat is Franklinton. The parish was founded in 1819.
In 1960, Colten named Charles E. Maple as news editor of both the Press and the Herald. Maple came to Minden from Murfreesboro, Arkansas, where he had been publisher and editor of the Pike County Press, covering Pike County.[4] In 1963, Colten was named "Boss of the Year" in Minden.[5] He sold the Press-Herald in 1965 and became the executive director of the Minden Chamber of Commerce until June 1966, when he announced his candidacy for mayor.[6] Maple served a stint as the chamber director to succeed Colten beginning in September 1966.[7]
The Minden Press-Herald is a Monday-Friday daily newspaper published in Minden, the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, by Specht Newspapers, Inc. It serves the Minden and Webster Parish circulation area with mostly local news.
Murfreesboro is a city in, and the county seat of, Pike County, Arkansas, United States. Its population was 1,764 at the 2000 census. The city is known for the Crater of Diamonds State Park located south of the city.
Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the United States, home to over 3 million people as of 2018. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the Quapaw Indians. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.
The Minden Press and the 'Minden Herald were each weeklies, but they merged into the daily Minden Press-Herald on July 18, 1966, with an accent still on local news.[8] "He [Colten] set an example for all who follow in his footsteps at the Press-Herald," said the then Press-Herald editor and publisher Josh Beavers. "He published a fine product every press run and we strive to emulate his success daily."
In 1964, Colten was named president of the Minden Chamber of Commerce.[9] That same year, he was president of the Louisiana Press Association and filed as a Republican for a Ward 4 seat on the Webster Parish School Board but soon withdrew from consideration,[10] and two Democrats ran unopposed for both seats at stake.
Webster Parish School Board is a school district headquartered in Minden in northwestern Louisiana, United States. The district operates public schools in Webster Parish.
In 1967, as the newly elected mayor, he was named "Minden Man of the Year."[11]
Small-town politics
Unlike many northern Republican transplants to Louisiana who became Democrats so that they could participate in the state's then pivotal closed primary elections, Colten maintained Republican affiliation and could hence vote only in general elections or in special elections. In June 1966, Colten announced his candidacy for mayor of Minden, a position once held by a former Democratic governor, Robert F. Kennon. Minden has also produced five congressmen, including Democrat Jerry Huckaby, who graduated from Minden High School in 1959. But Huckaby's Fifth Congressional District, which he represented from 1977 to 1993, never included Webster Parish until Huckaby's defeat and then only temporarily.
Until Colten, no Republican had ever before even run for mayor of Minden. The city had practically no registered Republicans, and Colten did not mention party affiliation. While Minden was overwhelmingly Democratic in registration, Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona had easily won the city and Webster Parish in the previous presidential election. And the Republican senatorial candidate Taylor W. O'Hearn had won there in 1962 as well in his unsuccessful challenge to Russell B. Long.
The 1964 presidential election was the last before passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which empowered large numbers of African American voters, who had not previously been a deciding force in Minden politics. Though Colten ran for mayor in 1966 as a racial moderate, two years earlier he had spoken before a Minden civic group in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he called "a threat to the economy."[13] He cited the case of Motorola, which had to discontinue aptitude tests in employee selection because African Americans had scored less well on such examinations than had whites. "This is a socialistic trend against private enterprise," Colten said.[14] With the passage of civil rights laws and court rulings outlawing segregation, blacks grew in influence in the community. Minden was 52 percent black, according to the 2010 census.
Candidate Colten claimed that he wanted to get Minden "moving," implying that the two-term incumbent, Frank T. Norman, who held the office since 1958 and had been the public safety commissioner from 1952 to 1958, had been too passive. Colten never used the "R" label. In fact, the Press-Herald on the day after the general election referred to Colten merely as "the challenger," with no mention of party affiliation. Colten received 2,044 votes (55.8 percent) to Norman's 1,622 (44.2 percent).[15] Norman had been handicapped in the race in part because a black candidate for mayor named J. D. Hampton, Jr. (1935–2015)—the first black mayoral candidate in city history—had opposed him in the Democratic primary held on August 13, 1966. Norman drew 70 percent of the vote in that exchange but fell short in November against Colten.[16][17]
First term as mayor
Webster Parish historian John A. Agan wrote that "the respect Colten earned in the community where Republicans were practically nonexistent was a great tribute to his character and abilities."[18] Agan described Colten's approach to the office as "more businesslike" than had been the part-time manner of the Norman administration. Colten courted Democrats and once rode a "Democrat" donkey in a parade after losing a bet. He maintained good relations with U.S. RepresentativeJoe Waggonner of Louisiana's 4th congressional district and GovernorEdwin Edwards, all of which helped to alleviate the impact that Minden faced with curbacks at the largest nearby employer, the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant.[19]
Once in office, Colten proposed a one-cent city sales tax to finance improvement projects, including a new city hall/civic center complex, street paving, fire stations, and parks. The tax passed by only four votes in a special election held on May 23, 1967: 1,544 to 1,540. Collection of the tax began on August 1.[20] McInnis Brothers contractors was low bidder at $740,276 for the city hall/civic center project.[21] Though there was some expansion from the capital improvements, Minden's population never increased much after the 1960 census, usually in the 12,000 to 13,000 range, but there was sluggish growth in outlying areas to the north.
Despite his Republican registration, he was strictly nonpartisan in the administration of the city. The five-man city council was all Democratic. He also understood how to use the media to his advantage and the value of continued public relations. He knew that the "earned media," as it is now called, was "free," whereas advertising cost the candidate. He wrote a paid column for the Press-Herald while he was mayor. This gave him additional "free advertising" to highlight his administration. Colten would "drop names" in the column, knowing that people he cited would probably vote to reelect him if he mentioned them.
In 1969, Colten was named the vice president of the Louisiana Municipal Association, the first Republican ever to serve in that position.[22]
Second term as mayor
In his re-election advertising, Colten stressed the resurfacing of 625 city blocks in his first four years in office as well as the construction of a newly opened central fire station, two recreation centers, and improvements at the general aviation Minden Airport off the Caney Lake Road. He also could cite water, sewerage, and sanitation improvements as well as the building of the new City Hall and companion Civic Center.[23]
Once again, Frank Norman was Colten's opponent, but the incumbent had the advantage because the community leadership lined up solidly behind him. Yet, Colten seemed unsure as to whether he could win again and took nothing for granted. He had first considered running as an Independent in the general election but chose in the end to remain a Republican. In their 1970 rematch, Colten defeated Norman 2,381 votes (58.9 percent) to 1,661 ballots (41.1 percent).[24]
His second term did not proceed as smoothly as his first, though he was elected for the year 1972–73 as the president of the Louisiana Municipal Association, an association of then 322 mayors across the state. Colten was the first Republican ever to head the association.[25]
In the summer of 1973, Colten resigned as a full-time mayor and converted to part-time status so that he could accept the position of chief executive of the city's private hospital, Minden Medical Center, formerly known as Minden Sanitarium.[26] The change meant that Colten's $12,000 annual salary was cut to $200 per month, the same as for city council members at the time. Had Colten resigned, the senior council member, Jack Batton, whose older brother, J. D. Batton had been the parish sheriff from 1952 to 1964, would have become mayor for the remainder of Colten's term.[27] Colten hence announced that he would not seek a third term in 1974. Then he changed his mind and ran again for the full-time position. This time, Republicans contested most municipal positions.
In September 1974, some five hundred persons marched on City Hall to protest high utility bills in Minden. The dissidents were responding to the hastily formed Committee for Lower Utilities, headed by Steve Fomby, later a member of the Webster Parish School Board. Some complained that meter readers were staying in their trucks and estimating the readings. A convenience store owner said that if her excessive billing were repeated, she would have to close her doors. Electricity in Minden is sold by the municipality, which uses profits to finance a portion of city government costs.[28] Colten and the city council did not attend the rally against the utility bills. Colten was on city business in Baton Rouge at the time but said he would have cancelled the trip had he known about the rally in advance.[29] The utilities issue as well as the vacillation over full- and part-time status of the mayor are widely believed to have brought about the defeat of Colten. Several other city council members that year were also defeated, including Sanitation Commissioner Lonnie Lester "Red" Cupples (1914–1980) and Utilities Commissioner Fred T. "Tony" Elzen, Sr. (1922–2012)[30]
With one exception, the Republican ticket went down to defeat. Colten was unseated by the Democrat J.E. "Pat" Patterson, 3,186 (62.5 percent) to 1,914 (37.5 percent), a businessman who had formerly owned Tidecraft Boats. Republican Felix R. Garrett (1922–1987), a university educator, won election as city utilities commissioner in 1974, having unseated his former high school classmate, the Democrat Fred Elzen.[31] Four years later, Garrett took an open seat on the city council, when it converted to single-member districts.[32]
Future Minden Mayor Bill Robertson was elected without opposition in the 1974 general election as sanitation commissioner. Robertson had narrowly defeated Patrick Cary Nation (1918–2005), a retired coach and educator, in the Democratic runoff election held on September 26, 1974.[33]
In 1989, another Republican, Paul A. Brown, formerly of New Orleans, was elected mayor but served only a year. He was seriously injured in an accident on the Minden High School football field, was unable to serve as mayor, and died six years later. Brown was succeeded in 1990 by current Mayor Bill Robertson, an Arkansas native who won a sixth consecutive term in the 2010 general election. Colten and Brown had three things in common: they were Republicans, neither was a Minden native, and each had been executive director of the chamber of commerce before he ran for mayor.
Building a Republican Party in Louisiana
As Colten left the office of mayor, the city council presented him with a plaque, "Minden's Best Damn Yankee Republican Mayor."[34] Colten was not the first Republican mayor in Louisiana. That designation went to Jack Breaux, who was elected mayor of Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish in the spring of 1966.[35]
Though his Minden newspapers had endorsed Charlton Lyons for governor in 1964,[36] Colten approached city government from a nonpartisan basis. This discouraged Republicans who wanted to expand their party into a viable political force in the city and state. He did little to encourage other Republicans to run for office and once opposed a Republican candidate for sheriff by convincing the Webster Parish Republican Executive Committee to set the filing fee so high that it would discourage the candidate from running—it did not, however, in that case. Colten hence favored offering only serious candidates, not obscure place names to fill a ballot.
Colten also sometimes got involved in Democratic primary fights—particularly the "battle of the Montgomerys" for one of the thirty-nine seats in the Louisiana State Senate in 1967 and 1971. He favored (though he could not vote in the primary at the time) Jack Montgomery, a Springhill native and Minden lawyer who was challenging two-term State Senator Harold Montgomery of Doyline, also in Webster Parish. Jack Montgomery won in 1967, but Harold Montgomery returned to victory in 1971. The Montgomerys were not related.
Harold Montgomery told a reporter in 1975 that he could not understand why Colten, a Republican, had undercut him, when Harold Montgomery, unlike Jack Montgomery, had frequently supported Republican candidates, including Charlton Lyons, who opposed John McKeithen in the 1964 gubernatorial election and then Senator Goldwater for the presidency that same year. Harold Montgomery was one of the state senators who had sometimes quarreled with McKeithen. McKeithen supported Jack Montgomery, a Minden lawyer.
In 1972, Colten and State Representative Roderick Miller of Lafayette were among the few dissenting members of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee who cast votes in opposition to a resolution calling upon the party to exercise responsiveness to the needs of African Americans, blue collar workers, young people, and the poor. The measure, approved by a vote of 87 to 9, came just five weeks after the Republican gubernatorial nominee, David C. Treen polled only 2 percent of the ballots among black voters.[37]
In 1980, Governor Treen appointed Colten as the assistant secretary to Paul J. Hardy, who had been newly named as the secretary for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. Hardy was a former Louisiana Secretary of State who had been an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in 1979.[41] When Hardy left the top transportation post, Treen elevated Colten to secretary of the department. He served a second stint as assistant secretary of DOTD under Governor Buddy Roemer, with Neil Lassion Wagoner (1936-2018), a native of Winnfield who graduated with a degree in petroleum engineering from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.[42] as the secretary. Colten in effect was the point man on state highways, and elected officials depended on his expertise. In the fourth administration of Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, Colten was from 1992 to 1993 the public relations officer for the highway section of DOTD. [43]
Late in 1972, Colten had been appointed by Governor Edwin Edwards as one of 27 delegates to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, which began deliberations in Baton Rouge on January 5, 1973. Another 105 delegates were elected from their respective state House districts.[44] Colten was a former chairman of the Northwest Louisiana Clearinghouse Review Board. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting. He was a member of the Governor's Property Tax Study Committee, the Joint House–Senate Study Committee on Industrial Inducement, the East Baton Rouge Industrial Development Board, the State Deferred Compensation Commission,[45] the Louisiana Tourism Commission, and the Southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission.
Retirement in Kentucky
Upon retirement from DOTD in 1993,[46] Colten and his wife, the former Jane Kimmel (1923–2013), moved to the capital city of Frankfort, Kentucky, to be near their younger son, Lee Arthur Colten (born 1958), a conservationist for the State of Kentucky, and his wife the former Marianna Mahoney. Jane Colten was a native of DuQuoin, Illinois, the daughter of Roberta Pyatt and Maurice Edward Kimmel, and like her husband a graduate of DePauw University.[47]
Colten was a member of the Frankfort Rotary International, the Blue Grass Area Development District, and the Frankfort and the Kentucky chambers of commerce.[48]
Colten died in Frankfort and is interred there, but the grave location was not announced. He was a member of the Minden Presbyterian Church, Broadmoor Presbyterian in Baton Rouge, and the South Frankfort Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. In addition to his wife and son Lee, Colten was survived by a daughter, Connie Colten (born 1951) of Austin, Texas; another son, Craig Edward Colten (born 1952), a geography professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge; a sister, Mary Colten Glodt (1920–2005), then of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and last residing in Houston, Texas, and a younger brother, Richard Colten (born c. 1931) of Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.[48]
Colten was not the only Minden mayor with newspaper experience. David William Thomas, who served from 1936 to 1940,[49] and W. Jasper Blackburn, who filled a one-year term from 1855 to 1856, had extensive experience in journalism as well. J. Frank Colbert, mayor from 1944 to 1946, was a former editor of the Minden Democrat and the Signal-Tribune, forerunners to the Minden Press-Herald. Former Mayor Connell Fort was also a newspaperman during a part of his career.
Mayor Bill Robertson said on Colten's death: "He made so many things possible. He is responsible for our civic center and so many other positive things that have happened in Minden."[48]
Webster Parish is a parish located in the northwestern section of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The seat of the parish is Minden.
Robert Floyd Kennon Sr., known as Bob Kennon, was the 48th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1952 to 1956. From 1954 to 1955, he was chairman of the National Governors Association. In 1955, he was also the chairman of the Council of State Governments.
Walter Fox McKeithen served five terms as Secretary of State of Louisiana between 1988 and 2005. He is best known for merging the state's election divisions into one department and for the promotion of historical preservation.
Paul Jude Hardy is an American attorney from Baton Rouge, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, who was the first Republican to have been elected lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He served in the second-ranking post under Governor Buddy Roemer from 1988 to 1992.
William Henson Moore III is a retired attorney and businessman who is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having represented Louisiana's 6th congressional district, based about Baton Rouge, from 1975 to 1987. He was only the second Republican to have represented Louisiana in the House since Reconstruction, the first having been David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish.
Charlton Havard Lyons, Sr., also known as Big Papa Lyons, was a Shreveport oilman who in March 1964 waged, as a strong segregationist, the first determined Republican bid for the Louisiana governorship since Reconstruction. Lyons also made a strong but losing bid for Louisiana's 4th congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives in a special election held in December 1961. At the time of his death, Lyons was considered "Louisiana's Mr. Republican".
Shelby Marion Jackson was a Democrat who served from 1948 to 1964 as the superintendent of public education in Louisiana. In the early 1960s, Jackson tried in vain to block federally authorized school desegregation. Jackson was posthumously honored in 1994 by the naming of the "Shelby M. Jackson Memorial Campus" of Louisiana Technical College in Ferriday.
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Parey Pershing Branton Sr. was a businessman from Shongaloo, Louisiana, who was from 1960 to 1972 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from what is now District 10 in Webster Parish. The district, which includes the parish seat of Minden in northwestern Louisiana, is now represented by the Democrat Gene Reynolds of Dubberly.
A. Harold Montgomery Sr. was an agricultural businessman and a Louisiana state senator, who was an outspoken conservative within his state's dominant Democratic Party. He represented District 36 of Bossier and Webster Parishes in his first two terms (1960-1968) and later Bienville and Claiborne Parishes as well in his third nonconsecutive term (1972-1976).
John Sidney Garrett was a conservative Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives who served from 1948 to 1972 under four gubernatorial administrations. Garrett was a successful businessman in the small town of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish south of the Arkansas state line. In his last term, he was defeated for reelection even though he was the Speaker of the House. In 1966, Garrett made a strong but losing primary race for the Louisiana Public Service Commission to fill the seat vacated by the election of John McKeithen as governor. At the time, there were only three PSC districts; the number was increased to five under the Louisiana Constitution of 1974.
Jean McGlothlin Doerge is a retired school teacher and a Democratic former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Minden, who represented District 10 from the death in 1998 of her husband, Everett Doerge, until January 9, 2012.
Everett Gail Doerge was an American state legislator who served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 10 from January 1992 until his death in office.
Edwin Sanders Richardson, Sr., principally known as E. S. Richardson, was an educator who served from August 14, 1936, until 1941 as the president of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish. Previously, Richardson was the superintendent of schools in his native Webster Parish. The E.S. Richardson Elementary School at the intersection of East Todd and Elm street in the eastern part of Minden, established by a bond issue after World War II, is named in his honor.
Robert Lafayette Frye was an educator and politician from the U.S. state of Louisiana.
The Bogalusa Daily News is a newspaper established in 1927 and still published in Bogalusa, Louisiana in the United States of America.
Charles Allen Marvin, known as Corky Marvin, was an American district attorney and a state circuit court judge in North Louisiana from 1971 until his retirement in 1999.
John David Batton, known as J. D. Batton, was from 1952 to 1964 the sheriff of his native Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. He was defeated after three terms by O. H. Haynes, Jr., a fellow Democrat and the son of the sheriff, O. H. Haynes, Sr., whom Batton had himself unseated twelve years earlier.
Fred W. Jones Jr. was a judge of three levels of court in his native U.S. state of Louisiana, based in Ruston in Lincoln Parish.
↑ "Tom Colten Elected Mayor of Minden: Challenger Takes Seven of Ten City Precincts to Win in General Election", Minden Press-Herald, November 9, 1966, p. 1
↑ "Treen Replaces Stagg as Committeeman", Minden Press-Herald, March 6, 1972
↑ "Colten gets SBA term", Minden Press-Herald, October 28, 1975, p. 3A
↑ "Colten slated", Minden Press-Herald January 31, 1978, p. 1
↑ "Colten Assumes GOP Post", Minden Press-Herald, October 21, 1985
↑ A Democrat-turned-Republican, Paul J. Hardy was later elected lieutenant governor in 1987—the first Republican elected to that position since Reconstruction.
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