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OUR GOAL AND MISSION

Main Street Kentwood, Inc. is a culturally diverse, inclusive, non-profit corporation established to spearhead and manage an effort to become certified as a Louisiana Main Street Community. It is a tried-and-true system to stimulate economic redevelopment of Kentwood by revitalizing Kentwood’s Main Street. That is our goal and mission. The Main Street Louisiana program is administered by Louisiana’s Division of Historic Preservation. The program recognizes that a strong and vibrant core area, like Kentwood’s Main Street, is important for the economic and cultural well-being of a town like Kentwood. The Main Street Louisiana program has helped about 34 communities in Louisiana transform the way they think about the revitalization and management of their downtown and neighborhood commercial districts. The Main Street Program’s “Approach” is a common-sense, strategy driven framework that guides community based revitalization efforts. In other words, the citizens of Kentwood work to achieve those goals utilizing the tried and tested methods of the Main Street Louisiana program. The Approach is most effective in places like Kentwood where community residents have a strong emotional, social, and civic connection and are motivated to get involved and make a difference. This approach works where existing assets—such as older and historic buildings and local independent businesses—can be leveraged. It encourages communities to take steps to enact long term change, while also implementing short term, inexpensive and placed-based activities that attract people to the commercial core and create a sense of enthusiasm and momentum about their community. We are starting the application process and undertaking the steps needed to become a Main Street community and revitalize Main Street. But we can't do it alone and we need your help, support and ideas. Please help us make Kentwood the great place it always was and can be again.

Kentwood’s History

Incorporated in 1893, the Town of Kentwood was named in honor of Amos Kent. Born in New Hampshire in 1811, Kent moved to Louisiana in 1828, where he established a mercantile business in Baton Rouge with his brother. After closing the business in 1836, Kent moved to St. Helena Parish. In 1852 the Kent family moved to Greensburg where Amos Kent became Registrar of the Land Office, a position appointed by President Franklin Pierce. Following completion of the 206 mile New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad (later renamed the Illinois Central Railroad), Amos Kent moved to the northeastern section of the parish, and purchased property that later became the Town of Kentwood. That section of the parish became part of Tangipahoa Parish in 1869. Kent assisted other developers in laying out a town on cleared land, where they established a post office in 1888, and named the town Kentwood. Amos Kent served eight years in the Louisiana legislature. He built a home at Oak Hill, near Cool Creek, a sawmill, and brick factory that ultimately became the largest in the South.

Prof. Oliver Wendell Dillon

Tangipahoa Parish Training School was the first African American training school in the South, and one of the first rural public schools that provided secondary education for Negroes in the nation. O.W. Dillon nurtured support from both the black and white communities. O.W. Dillon’s legacy began in 1948, the first year of his administration, when he received donations from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, The Slater Fund, and the State of Louisiana.

Early Industry

In 1905 Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company (formerly the Banner Lumber Company and the Isabella Lumber Company) sold all of its holdings to the Brooks-Scanlon Company of Minnesota. These sales including timberlands, railroads and a sawmill in Kentwood. The Kentwood & Eastern Railway and the Kentwood, Greensburg and Southwestern Railroad provided access to vast local forests. However, in just a few years beginning in 1915, the old growth pine forests had dwindled in the region, and Brooks-Scanlon moved to Foley, Alabama and Oregon in 1923.

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