Jake W. Cameron

Jacob Welch Cameron, known as Jake W. Cameron (April 17, 1913—September 30, 1999), was an American businessman who served as a Democrat from 1957 to 1961 as the eighth mayor of Bossier City, the sister city to Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana.

Jacob Cameron was born on April 17, 1913, in Homer, Louisiana, to Milton Perry Cameron (1867-1946) and the former Lou Ada Nelson (1875-1956). He had seven siblings: Marie Margaret Cameron, John Edward Cameron, Martha Eugenia Cameron Linton, Milton James Cameron, Bill P Cameron, Thomas Hugh Cameron, and Benjamin Horace Cameron.

After graduation from Homer High School, Cameron obtained in 1938 a bachelor's degree from Southern Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville.

Teaching

Cameron taught school and coached in Claiborne and Bossier parishes prior to service in the United States Coast Guard during World War II.

Politics

Cameron served as Bossier City police chief. At the time of his election as mayor on May 16, 1957, he was the chief Bossier Parish deputy tax assessor. He succeeded the one-term mayor, Burgess McCranie, who was also a former police chief. Under Mayor Cameron, the city completed a master plan for orderly growth, a railroad underpass on Hamilton Road, and the municipal water plant. Cameron said that he tried to meet individual constituent needs as mayor. He recalled a woman who ran over a sewerage manhole that a city employee had accidentally left uncovered. When Cameron called the city insurance agent to request a new tire for the motorist, the agent balked at covering the expense. "At first the insurance company wasn’t going to buy a new tire, but I said, 'Well, if she doesn't get a new tire, the first thing Monday morning, we’ll have a new insurance agent.' The agent said, 'Mayor, send that lady right down.'" Cameron predicted that Bossier City would grow "by leaps and bounds" in population as well as attracting business and investment.

In June 1960, Cameron joined Mayor Clyde Fant of Shreveport at a reception at Shreveport Regional Airport called to honor disabled veterans from World War II and to seek the reopening of the Disabled American Veterans Service Center at the Overton Brooks Veterans Administration Hospital in Shreveport. The event drew large media coverage.

Cameron was unseated as mayor on April 8, 1961, after one term, by his fellow Democrat George Nattin, who like McCranie and Cameron was a former municipal police chief. Nattin polled 3,204 votes to Cameron's 1,571 ballots.

Thereafter, Cameron was a member of the elected Bossier Parish School Board. He was a deacon and Sunday school teacher at the First Baptist Church of Bossier City. He was a trustee of his alma mater, Louisiana College, having served alongside Claude Kirkpatrick and J. D. Grey.

In 1939, Cameron married the former Iva Lynn Eatman (1918-2009) of Bossier City, a graduate of Centenary College who was a long-term Bossier Parish educator. They had no children. They are interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.