A million-dollar mass of smoldering ashes and rubble greeted neighbors on the morning of May 28, 1951, at 1409 Boulevard. That was all that remained of the 35-year-old main building of Lake Charles High School. “Flames which ravaged the building in a blazing holocaust last evening where first noticed by students and others gathering for the 6 o’clock baccalaureate service for the 92 members of the 1951 graduating class in the nearby school gymnasium,” the morning edition of the Lake Charles American Press reads. Mark D. Wentz Jr., the city school board president at the time, told the newspaper the...