A few pictures from Liberia and Lamco.

Stig Boberg

This part is mainly about Monrovia. Here you find pictures from Buchanan and Nimba.

I worked in Monrovia from 1958 to 1962. Then I moved to Buchanan for two years and then to Yekepa for two years.

In Monrovia I was responsible for the radio station, the only contact out for the people who worked in Buchanan and Nimba as well as in some “bush camps”. At that time most people in Buchanan lived in the old Sentab camp. In Nimba everybody lived at the Grassfield. Yekepa came later.

I have a lot of pictures of people. My oldest daughter (Mona) is born in Buchanan. And that has of course had some influence on the type of pictures taken! Here you will find a few pictures of a more general nature. The quality is somewhat bad mainly because the dia pictures has spent some time in the tropics.

When I went down the firsta time in 1958 I travelled with a Caravelle to Paris, spent the night there and then continued with an Air France “Super Constellation” to Dakar. From Dakar one had to take a DC3 that after some stops along the route landed at Robertsfield. The DC3 on the picture below could be this one or one belonging to LNA, the local carrier.

In 59-60 some time SAS rerouted its South America flight to stop at Robertsfield. In the beginning they flew with a DC-7 propeller plane and a bit later the DC-8 jet.

Going from Monrovia to Buchanan at that time required some efforts as you can see from the next two pictures.

There where no bridge at Hartford. LAMCO had to provide it’s own ferry. A simple one propelled by a sort of large outboard engine and wide enough to accommodate two Volvo jeeps side by side. You could however not leave the jeeps while on the ferry and I still remember the poor visitor who wasn’t aware of this and suddenly decided to jump out of the jeep via the side door to take some pictures. Instead of landing on the ferry he landed in the river!

Sometimes the road was transferred into a lake as on the right picture above. In order to pass one had to extrapolate the position of the road.

In Monrovia most people lived around the office and Lamco Lodge. The office was located on the second floor of the General Managers house, in the basement of Lamco Lodge and on the first floor of Al Schoucairs house. Some units was also located on the other side of Mamba point, half way to the free port of Monrovia.

Pictures from Buchanan and Nimba.

Stig Boberg

Email: stig.boberg@bredband.net

Copyrights: The material can be used freely as long as the source is mentioned.