History
Airline Motors Restaurant was built in 1937 and opened in 1937. It was built mainly from building material from Jefferson College gymnasium. Cypress beam supports in the kitchen and beams in the attic.
Opened as Airline Chevrolet Co. in 1937 selling Chevrolet automobiles, provided service station services, and wrecker services and repair shop. Airline Chevrolet Co. was a partnership of H.C. Cotham(operator) and A.L. Woods. We were next to Roussells restaurant.
Airline Highway opened in LaPlace area in 1935 -- It was the main highway from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Baton Rouge gets traffic from Shrevport, Lake Charles and Lafayette and most points in Louisiana. Other routes single lane 51 and Route 190.
During the depression, sales practices by major auto companies, such as forcing unwanted models, forced on dealers caused the franchise to be given up.
The cafe was added in lieu of the auto dealership in 1939. Services included cafe, slot machines, service station, wrecker services and garage services(tires, batteries, accessories) as partnership H.C. Cotham and A.L. Woods. Mrs. Cotham was in charge of the cafe.
In 1948 a major remodeling of the cafe took place and enlarged it to a restuarant. Additional footage added services, with restrooms, service station, wrecker service and repair shop.
In 1958 another major remodeling with enlarged restuarant. The garage was moved out of the building to a separate location on the side. We added private dining room for baquets, wedding receptions, and other events. The slot machines were removed in 1951.
Airline Motors restuarant was a 24 hours a day restuarant, 7 days a week, since opening in 1939 with the station closing for Christmas(1 day) on about 1956. Operated three(3), eight(8) hour shifts, seven(7) days a week at about 1948, before that we worked 12 hour shifts seven(7) days a week.
The restuarant was a political stop over between Baton Rouge and New Orleans for state politicians. Some of the remembered legislature are;
Hale and Lindy Boggs, Russel and Kay Leag, Allen Ellender, Leonder Perez
Governors;
S. Clonos, Edwin Edwards, E. Long, Dave Treen, J. Davis, J. McKethen
We received marketing help in La. Products from Dave Pearson.
Closed operations in December 24, 1993. Reopened a year later by Richard Alford..
When the restuarant was first opened, LaPlace was a small town of approximately 1000 people. The restuarant was used as a fire department at one time, and as a hurricane evacuation center.
Mrs. H.C. Cotham ran the cafe and restuarant operations from 1939 until her retirement in October 1981.
When Airline Chevrolet opened in 1937 population at LaPlace was about 1000 people. There were no banks. Airline Motors provided services of cashing payroll checks, and local checks were handled at Airline Motors.
A shift bus had to be used to get enough employees to operate the cafe and restuarant. Labor came primarily from LaPlace, Reserve, and Garyville. The shift bus would run every eight hours to pick up employees coming in work shift and to bring employees home from previous work shift. We discontinued the bus service in October 1982. At one time we had 17 service station personnel, 2 repair shop, and 65 restuarant personnel which included 5 managers.
We catered to the major industries in the area, Dupont, Bayou steel, Kaiser, and Marathon, delivering lunches for up to 200 employees working overtime at 2:00 am in the morning.
We advertised by passing out rulers or blotters(remember the fountain ink pens), and we paid a fellow a dollar a day to stand by the highway and record license plate numbers of cars as they drove by. We would then look up their address and send them an invitation to stop by the restuarant!
home