Sibley, Louisiana

Sibley, Louisiana
Town
Sibley Town Hall at site of former Sibley High School
Country United States
State Louisiana
Parish Webster
Elevation 200 ft (61.0 m)
Coordinates 32°32′27″N 93°17′36″W / 32.54083°N 93.29333°W / 32.54083; -93.29333Coordinates: 32°32′27″N 93°17′36″W / 32.54083°N 93.29333°W / 32.54083; -93.29333
Area 4.0 sq mi (10.4 km2)
 - land 3.9 sq mi (10 km2)
 - water 0.1 sq mi (0 km2), 2.5%
Population 1,218 (2010)
Density 284.0/sq mi (109.7/km2)
Mayor Jimmy Williams

Police Chief Jeremy Allen Robinson (No Party) (elected 2012)

Timezone CST (UTC-6)
 - summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5)
Area code 318
Location of Sibley in Louisiana
Location of Louisiana in the United States

Sibley is a town in south Webster Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,218 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Minden Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Community highlights

The former Sibley High School, now known as Lakeside Junior and Senior High School, is located south of town off Louisiana Highway 7. The Sibley Town Hall was relocated to a portion of the former Sibley High School campus.

Calloway Corners Bed and Breakfast north of Sibley
Baptist Tabernacle sanctuary under construction in Sibley
The First Baptist Church of Sibley was organized with fourteen members in February 1922, as an outreach of the First Baptist Church of Minden, with G. M. Harrell as the founding pastor.[1][2]

Calloway Corners

North of Sibley is Calloway Corners Bed and Breakfast, refurbished in 1991 by Jeanne Woods, formerly of San Diego, California.[3] Woods turned her business into a vacation destination through Harlequin Enterprises, which produces popular romance novels.[4] Woods said that she chose the white house that had been abandoned in Sibley because "I love this part of the country. The people have great charm. They are so friendly and easy to know. It's so different. People care about people here; they're not caught up in the rush of life."[4] Calloway Corners is featured on the front of several books penned by romance novelists Katherine Burton, Sandra Canfield, Tracy Hughes, and Penny Richards. Woods even got the state of Louisiana and the Webster Parish Police Jury to designate Calloway Corners as a "town" on signs on Highway 7.[4][5]

Lakeside Junior and Senior High School south of Sibley
First United Methodist Church in Sibley (pastor Milton Geltz, 2010) is adjacent to Lane Memorial Cemetery.
Lane Memorial Cemetery

Yellow Pine

The Yellow Pine community south of Sibley began as a sawmill of the Long Bell Company. Yellow Pine was the home of a comissary of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad. The mill employed both white and African American laborers. There were private residences and hotels in Yellow Pine, which was consolidated in 1921 with Sibley.[6]

The American artist Ben Earl Looney was born and reared in Yellow Pine but graduated from Minden High School before launching a career which took him to many parts of the United States.[7]

In a predominantly African American section of Yellow Pine is a community formerly known as "King Solomon Hill," centered on an actual hill on which stood King Solomon Hill Baptist Church. (The community is now known as "Salt Works.") The blues historian Gayle Dean Wardlow concluded that it was from this address that Paramount Records chose to give the blues musician Joe Holmes, a resident of Sibley, the recording name of King Solomon Hill.[8]

Churches

Sibley is the home of several churches, including First Baptist, First United Methodist, Missionary Baptist, and the Independent Baptist congregation, Baptist Tabernacle, founded by the late evangelist Jimmy G. Tharpe. In 2010, Baptist Tabernacle began constructing a new sanctuary adjacent to the existing one.

Lane Memorial Cemetery is adjacent to the Methodist Church.

Geography

Sibley is located at 32°32′27″N 93°17′36″W / 32.54083°N 93.29333°W / 32.54083; -93.29333 (32.540704, -93.293208).[9]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.0 square miles (10.4 km²), of which 3.9 square miles (10.0 km²) is land and 0.1 square mile (0.4 km²) (3.49%) is water.

Demographics

Historical population
Census Pop. %±
1920900—
1930422−53.1%
1940405−4.0%
195062353.8%
1960595−4.5%
197086946.1%
19801,21139.4%
1990997−17.7%
20001,09810.1%
20101,21810.9%
Est. 20151,184[10]−2.8%
U.S. Decennial Census[11]

As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 1,098 people, 412 households, and 315 families residing in the town. The population density was 284.0 people per square mile (109.5/km²). There were 457 housing units at an average density of 118.2 per square mile (45.6/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 74.95% White, 23.59% African American, 0.46% Native American, 0.18% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.55% of the population.

There were 412 households out of which 35.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.1% were married couples living together, 18.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.5% were non-families. 20.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.66 and the average family size was 3.06.

In the town the population was spread out with 27.9% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 24.0% from 45 to 64, and 13.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 91.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.9 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $28,816, and the median income for a family was $34,479. Males had a median income of $34,750 versus $17,750 for females. The per capita income for the town was $13,749. About 14.4% of families and 21.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.3% of those under age 18 and 22.1% of those age 65 or over.

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ "Sibley Baptist Church celebrates 50th year", Minden Press-Herald, February 24, 1972, p. 1
  2. ↑ "Sibley First Baptist grows from 14 members", Minden Press-Herald, July 31, 1987, p. 2C
  3. ↑ "Country home emerges from fiction to fact", Minden Press-Herald, November 5, 1993, p. 1
  4. 1 2 3 "Country home emerges from fiction to fact," Minden Press-Herald, September 5, 1993, pp. 1, 3
  5. ↑ It is unclear if Woods still owns Calloway Corners.
  6. ↑ Luther Longino, M.D., Thoughts, Visions and Sketches of North Louisiana, 1930, p. 121
  7. ↑ "Ben Earl Looney", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. I (1988), Louisiana Historical Association, p. 522
  8. ↑ Wardlow, Gayle Dean. Chasin' That Devil Music, Searching for the Blues. 1998. Miller Freeman Books. ISBN 0-87930-552-5. p. 211. Originally published as One Last Walk up King Solomon Hill in Blues Unlimited No. 148 (Winter 1987).
  9. ↑ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
  10. ↑ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015". Retrieved July 2, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Archived from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  12. ↑ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
  13. ↑ "George Norman Tharpe". Shreveport Times. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
  14. ↑ Jimmy G. Tharpe, Mr. Baptist, Springfield, Missouri: 21st Century Press, 2003; ISBN 0-9728899-2-2
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