During his long tenure as sheriff , Coleman directed several attempts to hold the Mississippi River within its levees . At the Tensas Parish centennial ceremony on April 6 , 1943 , Coleman delivered a speech " High Lights of High Waters " , which recounted several occasions during which the river tore through the levees to inundate the alluvial farming area of Tensas and adjoining parishes . On that occasion , then District Attorney Jefferson B. Snyder of Tallulah in neighboring Madison Parish , echoed Coleman 's observances , saying that he could recall the time when there were " no levees , no bridges , ferries nor roads , but the richest soil in the world , more fertile than the Valley of the Nile River . It was a hunter 's paradise . " While serving as sheriff , Coleman was a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , which nominated the Truman/Barkley ticket
1948 Democratic National Convention
1948 Democratic National Convention
Elliot D. Coleman