Roughly halfway across the state, Ruston (pop. 20,546) calls itself the “Peach Capital” but is best known for its two major colleges: Louisiana Tech (where local boy Terry Bradshaw played his college football), and smaller Grambling University, one of the nation’s top African-American schools, three miles west of town, just south of I-20.
Considering that it is one of the largest towns in northern Louisiana, Monroe (pop. 53,107) feels strangely abandoned, even though the downtown area has a number of classic commercial buildings dating from the period between the two World Wars, and Victorian-era warehouses and hundreds of ancient-looking “shotgun” shacks line the railroad tracks and US-80.
Apart from its photogenic architecture and fading roadside signs, Monroe doesn’t really offer much reason to stop, though the gorgeous greenery of the Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo (daily; $4; 318/329-2400), south of I-20 off US-165, makes it a great place to stretch your legs (or take a steam-train or boat ride) among the moss-draped oaks and cypress trees.
East of Monroe, it’s an hour’s drive across the bayous before you reach the fascinating city of Vicksburg, across the Mississippi River.
