White Lightning Meanders Through Hilly North La.

            White Lightning—it may evoke feelings of adventure, of moonshiners tearin' down the road with `revenooers' hot behind.

            Anyone who lives in Claiborne Parish has heard of the White Lightning Road. And anyone who has lived in Claiborne Parish since the 1950s and 1960s knows why LA146 is called the White Lightning Road. But for those unfamiliar with its history,  some background on the White Light-ning Road may  be `enlightning.'

            Few of the generation that witnessed the birth of the White Lightning in the 1920s are still around. Their children have become today's `old folks' and are dying out, too.

            As to how the White Lightning Road got its name, a couple of generations ago brewing one's own liquor (making moonshine or "white lightning" or "corn likker") was common. Most parishes in North Louisiana between Ouachita and Bossier and south toward Natchitoches were dry. No alcohol could be sold. Making moonshine was not illegal. But selling "corn likker" was. That was bootlegging. Most arrests in dry parishes before the 1970s were for bootlegging.

            But back to how the White Lightning got its name. It was in the 1920s that convicted bootleggers were put to work clearing and laying out the route of the White Lightning Road. So its laborers being mostly convicted bootleggers led to its name, White Lightning Road.

            Convicts used shovels, teams of mules, and slips and skids to clear and level the roadway. Leaning right, then left, stepping up, then down_LA 146 staggers for 30-something miles between Homer and Vienna. The convict roadbuilders cut down trees, dug out stumps, cleared underbrush, burned debris, leveled dips and rises_all without backhoes, graders, or bulldozers. A dirt road at first, after about 20 years it was covered with gravel. Back then, gravel was a major upgrade. Of course, it's been paved now for about 40 years.

            With more curves than a majorleague pitcher, the White Light-ning of today still bears the mark of its hooch heritage.

            Bill Hightower and Jimmy Dean researched this article.