Namesake

George Hathaway

The name for Hathaway, Louisiana comes from George Hathaway. Mr. Hathaway was born in Iowa in 1853. He worked for a land company that helped support government homesteading programs by providing funds to build railroads and canals. Among the many boards that Mr. Hathaway served on, probably the most interesting is a board of business leaders that formed to plan a railroad that ran north-south from the lines that ran east-west through Jennings and Elton. The main purpose for the line was to move crops to market quicker. Given the volume of crop yields for the Hathaway area, and that, in Southwestern Louisiana, depots were generally placed at five-mile increments, Mr. Hathaway likely had hopes of making his land a stop on that line. Problems with land acquisition kept this line from becoming a reality. This was probably for the best though. Within a decade, combustible engines could get rice to the rail in Jennings much faster than a train. And for his forward thinking, instead of a train depot being named for him, he had a school named for him.

As stated above, Mr. Hathaway kept busy during the time he was in the area by serving on boards of companies that his stock company funded. Mr. Hathaway's exact arrival time is not known, but it had to be within a year or two of the 1900 Census. He is not listed in that census and the earliest record of him in Southwestern Louisiana is in 1902. That is when the land company he worked with purchased the Grand Canal from Jennings Irrigation Company. Another member of the stock company that served with Mr. Hathaway was U.S. Phillips. He is significant because he ran a plantation on the land surrounding what is now Hathaway High School. As noted in another entry, Earl Walker, long time resident of Hathaway, moved there with his father who managed the U.S. Phillips plantation for a year.



Along with dealings for the land company, Mr. Hathaway served on a building committee in 1905 to build a new school building in Lake Arthur. Mr. Hathaway was the first president of the Library Board, and was even mayor of Jennings from 1909 to 1910. In the Census of 1910, he lists himself as the manager of a rice mill. In March, 1911, George Hathaway served on the founding board of Louisiana State Rice Company, which became the behemoth, Louisiana State Rice Milling Company, later that September. He was not on that board.



In 1912, he was elected the first Police Juror for Ward 2 (Jennings) of Jeff Davis Parish. In 1914, he and business partner, Claude Lambe, sold the Jeff Davis School Board four acres at Elton Road (Hwy.26) and what would become Pine Island Highway (Hwy.102). Claude Lambe was from Texas. He married Alma Tucheu, nine years his junior, in 1907. In 1910, he was bookkeeper for the rice mill that George Hathaway managed. Both men lived in Jennings. Mr. Hathaway on North Main Street; Mr. Lambe on Church Street. It is presumed they became business partners while working at the rice mill. In 1917, George Hathaway was named the second vice president of Louisiana Irrigation and Milling Co. after the company was reorganized coming out of receivership.

The land adjoining Mr. Hathaway’s, owned by descendants of Mr. Hathaway, was purchased later in 1936 when plans were made to build the new steel and brick school.