Randle T. Moore

Who was Randle T. Moore?

Randle Thomas Moore, Sr., was an eminent figure in the development of northwestern Louisiana during the latter part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Moore is best known to Louisiana history, of which he was a keen student, for a physical confrontation that he had on the streets of downtown Shreveport with the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr.

Of humble origin, Randle Moore was born to John Milton Moore and the former Jennie E. Jones, both Tennessee natives. His father was a farmer; so Moore spent much of his young life helping in the cotton fields. He eventually worked for others in the area at times for as little as fifty cents a day. At sixteen, Moore found work in Texarkana, Texas, as a clerk in a general store, where he stayed for three years. For the next several years, he worked as a store clerk, a grocer, and a shoe salesman.

In 1900, Moore married the former Susan Martha Frost, the daughter and sister, respectively, of eminent Arkansas lumbermen Enoch Wesley and Edwin Ambrose Frost. Randle and Susie had four children: Wesley Frost Moore, Virginia Elizabeth Moore Lewis, Edwin Ambrose Moore, and Randle Moore, Jr.