About the town » Wisner, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, United States

Wisner is a town in Franklin Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,140 at the 2000 census. The Holly Grove Colored Baptist Church in Wisner was established in the post-slavery period after the American Civil War through the work of pastor Eldridge King David Swayzer. One of Swayzer's descendants, Frances Swayzer Conley, an English professor at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City and a resident of Shreveport, has written a pictorial family history entitled Home To Holly Grove: Cherishing Our Rich Heritage. Home to Holly Grove is released through Sarah Hudson-Pierce's Ritz Publications in Shreveport. Earlier, in 2006, Conley published Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, a biography of the late president Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones of historically black Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish. In 1946, Wisner held the world's first international plow race, a light-hearted competition intended to engender a spirit of peace in the aftermath of World War II.