When you pick up the L’Observateur and read it, have you ever thought about how many people from outside St. John Parish also read it?

Several months ago, I received a call from Chicago in reference to an article I had written. Last week, I wrote the article about old jails and also asked if anyone had pictures of the old jail that was located in Reserve called the “Sweat Box.”

Well, just this week I received a call from Susan Waguespack Laurent who lives in Texas. She had read the article and had a photograph of the old jail and also knew some of the history. The following is a photo of the old jail and I have also included the letter from Susan Laurent.

Hi Wayne,

Here is the photo of the Reserve Sweatbox. I am not sure exactly when it was taken but think it was not too long before it was demolished. I also don’t remember if we took the photo or my mom did.

In the late 1940s my grandfather, Ben Waguespack Sr., ran a bar room on the River Road in what was later known as Joe Monica’s and is now a restaurant. The bar room was on the down river comer of West Fourth and Club Cafe was the upriver corner. Club Cafe was on the same side as Maurin’s Theatre. The sweatbox was located on West Fourth across from Maurin’s back parking lot. My grandparent’s house on West Fourth was the closest home to the sweatbox, and they lived there from some time in the 1940s until the mid 1950s. My grandparents and aunts said that mostly it was used as a place, when the ferry was not running, to put rowdy, mostly drunk, people until they could be taken to the jail across the river in Edgard. They would hear the people hollering at all hours of the night wanting my grandparents to call their families to get them out. My dad, Ben “Buddee” Waguespack Jr., got locked up a few times, and the family would break him out. From what my grandparents and aunts said, it was common for the families to break them out. I don’t remember hearing about people being locked up in there in the 1960s and 1970s.

Hope to make the museum on one of my trips back to Louisiana.

Sincerely,

Susan Laurent

Wayne Norwood is a lieutenant with the St. John the Baptist Sheriff’s Department and owner and operator of the Louisiana Treasures Museum.