There are many across Louisiana mourning America’s 41st President, because they knew him.
The Advocate’s Tyler Bridges interviewed several Louisianians and did some digging to assemble a story about President George H.W. Bush and his ties to the state.
He traveled throughout south Louisiana in the 1950s to acquire drilling rights for his Texas-based oil company, developed close relationships with Louisiana members of Congress in the 1980s while he was vice president and then president, and throughout his career became friends with a long list of people from Louisiana, The Advocate reports.
One of Bush’s last connections to Louisiana came after Hurricane Rita devastated southwest Louisiana in 2005. A year later, he went to Cameron Parish with a $2 million check for a hospital destroyed by Rita, and he returned three years later, with his health beginning to fail, to tour the reopened facility, the Advocate reports.
To read Bridges’ full story, click here.
