SHREVEPORT, La. - When John Bernard Slattery arrived in Shreveport in 1844, he was a 30-year-old Catholic lawyer with modest beginnings and ambitious dreams. Over the decades, those dreams would help shape the city’s identity — most notably through a towering landmark that still bears his name. Slattery, the son of Irish immigrants, built his fortune not in law but in real estate, acquiring land across Northwest Louisiana during a period of rapid growth.