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{{template|This article was revised from {{{site|Wikipedia}}} but the text was originally written by BHathorn (under the name) and does not include alterations made by others from that site.|background=#aff|category=Copied Articles}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name=Henry Lee Bridges, Sr.
|nationality=[[United States|American]]
| office=[[Mayor]] of [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]], [[Louisiana]]
| party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
| term_start=1928
| term_end=1932
| preceded=[[Robert F. Kennon]]
| succeeded=[[Connell Fort]]
| term_start2=1934
| term_end2=1936
| preceded2=[[Connell Fort]]
| succeeded2=[[David William Thomas]]
| birth_date=December 6, 1874}
| death_date=April 9, 1939 (aged 64)
| birth_place=Athens, Claiborne Parish
| death_place=Minden, Webster Parish
| resting_place=Minden Cemetery
| occupation=[[Business]]man
| spouse= Forrest Cobb Bridges
| children=Mary Elise Hilzim<br>
Helen B. Gallien<br>
Henry L. Bridges, Jr.<br>
Lewell Bridges<br>
Forrest Lee Bridges<br>
Jack Clifford Bridges
|religion=[[Methodist]]
|footnotes=
}}
'''Henry Lee Bridges, Sr.''' (December 6, 1874 – April 9, 1939), was a [[business]]man who served from 1928 to 1932 and again from 1934 to 1936 as the [[mayor]] of [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]], the seat of government for Webster Parish in northwestern [[Louisiana]].<ref>City of Minden, List of Minden Mayors Since 1888</ref>
==Biography==
Bridges was born in nearby [[rural]] Athens in Claiborne Parish but moved to Minden in 1907, where he operated a clothing store. He was first elected mayor in the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[primary]] in the spring of 1928, when [[Robert F. Kennon]], then twenty-six and later the [[governor]] of Louisiana from 1952 to 1956, declined to seek a second two-year term.<ref name=obit>"Bridges Rites Held Monday: Former Mayor Succumbs to Heart Attack", ''Minden Herald'', April 14, 1939, p. 1.</ref> The position became four years in 1954 and is now filled in the fall of the national mid-term elections.
Bridges was reelected on April 8, 1930, when he defeated Coleman Lindsey, later a state senator and the lieutenant governor in the abbreviated 1939–1940 term of Governor [[Earl Long]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lahistory.org/site29.php|title=Isaac Coleman Lindsey|publisher=Louisiana Historical Association|accessdate=May 24, 2011}}</ref> In that contest, Bridges polled 519 votes to 402 for Lindsey.<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 10, 1930, p. 1.</ref> In 1932, however, Bridges was unseated by his sole opponent, former Mayor [[Connell Fort]], who had preceded Kennon as mayor from 1922 to 1926. Fort polled 709 votes to Bridges's 437 in the primary held on April 12, 1932.<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 15, 1932, p. 1.</ref>
In the primary election held on April 10, 1934, Fort was eliminated from the race,<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 13, 1934, p. 1.</ref> and Bridges then faced his eventual successor as mayor, [[David William Thomas]], a former university professor, journalist, publisher, and lawyer, who was a native of [[Wales]]. In the runoff election held on May 15, Bridges handily defeated Thomas, 624 to 377.<ref>''Minden Herald'', May 18, 1934, p. 1.</ref> In March 1936, Thomas in turn unseated Bridges, 736 to 682, to secure the first of his two consecutive terms in the office.<ref>"David W. Thomas Elected Mayor", ''Minden Herald'', March 3, 1936, p. 1.</ref>After his defeat, Bridges returned to store keeping with the opening of a men's furnishings business in the Webb Building in Minden.<ref>"Mayor will soon go back to store keeping in Minden", ''Minden Herald'', May 15, 1936, p. 1.</ref>
Bridges was married to the former Miss Forrest Cobb (November 14, 1880 – December 18, 1947) of Athens. The couple had two daughters, Mrs. Helen Moss of Erath in Vermilion Parish in south Louisiana, later Helen Gallien of Columbus, [[Mississippi]], and Mary Elise Bridges, a former Webster Parish schoolteacher then living in [[Baton Rouge]]. Later, she was Mary Hilzim (1908–1988) of Minden, the wife of R. H. "Buster" Hilzim (1883–1961). Henry and Forrest Bridges had four sons, Henry L. Bridges, Jr. (1903–1962), who died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-nine;<ref>"Heart Attack Fatal to H. L. Bridges, Jr., Rites Tomorrow," ''Minden Herald'', May 17, 1962, p. 1.</ref> Forrest Lee Bridges (1912–1973), who ran for ward marshal in 1948,<ref>''Minden Herald'', August 27, 1948, p. 8.</ref> and Jack Clifford Bridges (1917–1977), all of Minden, and Lewell Bridges (1910–1980) of [[Shreveport]].<ref name=obit/><ref>Minden Cemetery records</ref>
Like his oldest son, Bridges died of a heart attack while he was returning home from observing a golf game. He was sixty-four and a [[Methodist]]. Pastors of Methodist, [[Presbyterian]], and [[Baptist]] churches conducted his services. He is interred beside family members at Minden Cemetery.<ref name=obit/> Son Lee Bridges was an inspector for the City of Minden and a former municipal sanitation superintendent. He died at the age of sixty in a boating accident in 1973 on Toledo Bend Reservoir near Many in Sabine Parish, in the company of his friend Albert Simolke (1917–1976) of Minden. Lee Bridges and his wife, the former Roba Watson (1917–2010), had two children, Roba Leah Bridges Miller (born 1949), and her husband, Clif Miller, then of [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]], and later from Shreveport, and Henry Watson Bridges (born 1950), who for a time was a banker in Minden.<ref>"Lee Bridges Dies in Boating Accident", ''Minden Press-Herald'', June 4, 1973, p. 1</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridges, Henry L.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Mayors]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Methodists]]
{{Infobox officeholder
| name=Henry Lee Bridges, Sr.
|nationality=[[United States|American]]
| office=[[Mayor]] of [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]], [[Louisiana]]
| party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
| term_start=1928
| term_end=1932
| preceded=[[Robert F. Kennon]]
| succeeded=[[Connell Fort]]
| term_start2=1934
| term_end2=1936
| preceded2=[[Connell Fort]]
| succeeded2=[[David William Thomas]]
| birth_date=December 6, 1874}
| death_date=April 9, 1939 (aged 64)
| birth_place=Athens, Claiborne Parish
| death_place=Minden, Webster Parish
| resting_place=Minden Cemetery
| occupation=[[Business]]man
| spouse= Forrest Cobb Bridges
| children=Mary Elise Hilzim<br>
Helen B. Gallien<br>
Henry L. Bridges, Jr.<br>
Lewell Bridges<br>
Forrest Lee Bridges<br>
Jack Clifford Bridges
|religion=[[Methodist]]
|footnotes=
}}
'''Henry Lee Bridges, Sr.''' (December 6, 1874 – April 9, 1939), was a [[business]]man who served from 1928 to 1932 and again from 1934 to 1936 as the [[mayor]] of [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]], the seat of government for Webster Parish in northwestern [[Louisiana]].<ref>City of Minden, List of Minden Mayors Since 1888</ref>
==Biography==
Bridges was born in nearby [[rural]] Athens in Claiborne Parish but moved to Minden in 1907, where he operated a clothing store. He was first elected mayor in the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[primary]] in the spring of 1928, when [[Robert F. Kennon]], then twenty-six and later the [[governor]] of Louisiana from 1952 to 1956, declined to seek a second two-year term.<ref name=obit>"Bridges Rites Held Monday: Former Mayor Succumbs to Heart Attack", ''Minden Herald'', April 14, 1939, p. 1.</ref> The position became four years in 1954 and is now filled in the fall of the national mid-term elections.
Bridges was reelected on April 8, 1930, when he defeated Coleman Lindsey, later a state senator and the lieutenant governor in the abbreviated 1939–1940 term of Governor [[Earl Long]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lahistory.org/site29.php|title=Isaac Coleman Lindsey|publisher=Louisiana Historical Association|accessdate=May 24, 2011}}</ref> In that contest, Bridges polled 519 votes to 402 for Lindsey.<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 10, 1930, p. 1.</ref> In 1932, however, Bridges was unseated by his sole opponent, former Mayor [[Connell Fort]], who had preceded Kennon as mayor from 1922 to 1926. Fort polled 709 votes to Bridges's 437 in the primary held on April 12, 1932.<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 15, 1932, p. 1.</ref>
In the primary election held on April 10, 1934, Fort was eliminated from the race,<ref>''Minden Herald'', April 13, 1934, p. 1.</ref> and Bridges then faced his eventual successor as mayor, [[David William Thomas]], a former university professor, journalist, publisher, and lawyer, who was a native of [[Wales]]. In the runoff election held on May 15, Bridges handily defeated Thomas, 624 to 377.<ref>''Minden Herald'', May 18, 1934, p. 1.</ref> In March 1936, Thomas in turn unseated Bridges, 736 to 682, to secure the first of his two consecutive terms in the office.<ref>"David W. Thomas Elected Mayor", ''Minden Herald'', March 3, 1936, p. 1.</ref>After his defeat, Bridges returned to store keeping with the opening of a men's furnishings business in the Webb Building in Minden.<ref>"Mayor will soon go back to store keeping in Minden", ''Minden Herald'', May 15, 1936, p. 1.</ref>
Bridges was married to the former Miss Forrest Cobb (November 14, 1880 – December 18, 1947) of Athens. The couple had two daughters, Mrs. Helen Moss of Erath in Vermilion Parish in south Louisiana, later Helen Gallien of Columbus, [[Mississippi]], and Mary Elise Bridges, a former Webster Parish schoolteacher then living in [[Baton Rouge]]. Later, she was Mary Hilzim (1908–1988) of Minden, the wife of R. H. "Buster" Hilzim (1883–1961). Henry and Forrest Bridges had four sons, Henry L. Bridges, Jr. (1903–1962), who died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-nine;<ref>"Heart Attack Fatal to H. L. Bridges, Jr., Rites Tomorrow," ''Minden Herald'', May 17, 1962, p. 1.</ref> Forrest Lee Bridges (1912–1973), who ran for ward marshal in 1948,<ref>''Minden Herald'', August 27, 1948, p. 8.</ref> and Jack Clifford Bridges (1917–1977), all of Minden, and Lewell Bridges (1910–1980) of [[Shreveport]].<ref name=obit/><ref>Minden Cemetery records</ref>
Like his oldest son, Bridges died of a heart attack while he was returning home from observing a golf game. He was sixty-four and a [[Methodist]]. Pastors of Methodist, [[Presbyterian]], and [[Baptist]] churches conducted his services. He is interred beside family members at Minden Cemetery.<ref name=obit/> Son Lee Bridges was an inspector for the City of Minden and a former municipal sanitation superintendent. He died at the age of sixty in a boating accident in 1973 on Toledo Bend Reservoir near Many in Sabine Parish, in the company of his friend Albert Simolke (1917–1976) of Minden. Lee Bridges and his wife, the former Roba Watson (1917–2010), had two children, Roba Leah Bridges Miller (born 1949), and her husband, Clif Miller, then of [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]], and later from Shreveport, and Henry Watson Bridges (born 1950), who for a time was a banker in Minden.<ref>"Lee Bridges Dies in Boating Accident", ''Minden Press-Herald'', June 4, 1973, p. 1</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridges, Henry L.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Mayors]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Methodists]]