The Shreveport Municipal Auditorium in Shreveport, Louisiana, was designated a National Historic Landmark on October 7, 2008. National Historic Landmarks are buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects that have been determined by the Secretary of the Interior to be nationally significant in American history and culture.

• The Shreveport Municipal Auditorium is significant as the home of KWKH’s Louisiana Hayride, country music’s most innovative and experimental radio show from 1948 to 1958, when the show ended its national network affiliation.

• The Hayride was the proving ground of new talent that would be lured away by the Grand Ole Opry management once they had become sought-after performers.

• The Hayride’s willingness to accept unconventional performers and to be the harbinger of new sounds placed the show in a position of helping shape the development of the country music and rockabilly sound during the 1940s and 1950s.

• Despite its disappearance, the Hayride show is remembered as one of country music’s most revered institutions.

The Louisiana Hayride was a weekly country music radio show that introduced Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Kitty Wells, Johnny Cash and many others to a larger audience.

Location:  Municipal Auditorium, Shreveport, Louisiana
Admission:  Adults: 60 cents - Children: 30 cents
First Broadcast:  April 3, 1948
Radio Station:  KWKH
Hank Williams Debut:  August 7, 1948
Elvis Presley Debut:  October 16, 1954
Last Broadcast:  August 27, 1960

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Louisiana Hayride Years: Making Musical History in Country's Golden Age
By Horace Logan (Author), Bill Sloan (Author)
Hank Williams Jr. (Foreword), Johnny Cash (Introduction).

From 1948 to the late 1950s, Horace "Hoss" Logan produced the Louisiana Hayride, a weekly country music show broadcast on CBS Radio. The Hayride was known as the "Cradle of the Stars" for building many country music careers, and for introducing the young Elvis Presley to a national audience. Horace Logan's memoir "brings the old show back to life," as Hank Williams Jr. says--from Johnny Cash and Presley to George Jones, Johnny Horton, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, Willie Nelson, and many more. As producer, emcee, and friend to the Hayride performers, Logan gives us a personal look into musical history in the making. Complete with sixteen pages of rare onstage and behind-the-scenes photographs, Louisiana Hayride Years brings to life the early days of modern country music and the people who gave the Hayride a permanent place in popular musical culture.