Old Woodlawn High School (St. George, Louisiana)

The original photos posted on Carbon-izer weren't very good so I enhanced this one a bit. (Picture by author, June 2004).
As Numbered Exits is essentially a spin-off of Carbon-izer, it features a number of stuff that was originally there. One of the pages that never got to be published was on Baton Rouge. I'm still working on bringing a few things from over there to here (of what I wrote, only this is sourced from that page. Unlike Hi Nabor, which wasn't on the way to the house (but ads of which were scattered in the kitchen), Woodlawn High School (the original one) was. (Good thing I didn't publish it due to the whole St. George thing).

Originally located at the corner of Jones Bridge Road and Tiger Bend Road, this high school was a landmark when visiting my uncle's house east of it and a notable landmark on Tiger Bend Road for many years, even after its c. 2001-2002 widening (which ended at around the point of Woodlawn High School). The original school dated back to 1910 as Jones Creek School, renamed Seventh Ward School in 1911, and renamed again as Woodlawn High School around 1949 (presumably becoming high school only by this time).

The physical state of the school at 14939 Tiger Bend Road was deteriorating by the late 1990s (even if that article was sensationalized, it's not a good picture) and in 2003, the new Woodlawn High School opened at 15755 Jefferson Highway, and the old school was torn down in summer 2004. I know because I took pictures and published them on Carbon-izer. Woodlawn Middle School was later built on the site.

Tiger Bend Road itself was also not in the best shape, either, until around 2002-2003, this was Tiger Bend Road between Jefferson Highway and Jones Bridge Road (this is a cut-off portion where you can still see the original road, though the center stripe was removed).

This section is pretty close to my memory since the rest of it looks pretty different...and I don't have access to Baton Rouge newspaper archives.

Hearne Wal-Mart (Hearne, Texas)

From The Eagle (1991), source linked below.
Before it even reached 300 stores, Wal-Mart was mostly opening small stores in smaller markets, and Hearne, Texas, was no exception with store #291 at 1201 W. Brown Street, opening in September 1980.

Most of these stores are still open or replaced with Supercenter stores that share the same store number, Hearne, though, is an exception. In late 1990 it announced its closure—its short tenure making the New York Times (archive).

New York Times posits the oft-repeated theory that the larger store #322 in Bryan (located at 3113 South Texas Avenue and opened in 1982) had something to do with its closure, though that was over 20 miles away. It doesn't make much sense; after all, store 1150 at 1815 Brothers Blvd. co-exists with store #273 in Navasota, which is closer (a straight-shot of 20 miles, hardly any stoplights) and has co-existed since day one. Even when #1150 became a Supercenter, #273 never changed much.

But what really happened? In October 1990, there was a Ku Klux Klan rally in Hearne where a Klan higher-up, Michael D. Lowe, accused the Wal-Mart of closing because of theft, including shoplifting by employees. Wal-Mart denied all accusations. It wasn't in response to the demographics of shoplifters but a spokesman for Wal-Mart was quoted as saying, "To the best of my knowledge employee theft is no more a problem at that store than in any other store in any other company. The reason the store is being closed is because it is unprofitable. Period." The mayor (and serving municipal judge) had heard less than 15 theft cases over the last few years but conceded that "if there is a problem at Wal-Mart, it is occurring within the store."

The Wal-Mart closure left bitterness either way, with the store apparently never having turned a profit.

Eventually, Hearne was able to buy back the building from Wal-Mart and after a renovation that expanded the building, the store became the new home of Hearne High School, first opening for the fall 2004 school year and been around ever since. However, that article in the previous link does apparently confirm what was long-suspected...that it was employee theft after all. With that, we are left with two choices on what actually happened. The most likely scenario is that Wal-Mart lied through their teeth on what the closure was (after all, it's not like corporations are bound to tell the truth about everything and they'd also deny that their store had anything to do with the demise of downtown). The second, far less likely scenario is that Michael Lowe made up the "employee shoplifting" accusation and that's what the 2004 article ran with (which would look way worse for everyone involved).