— BRAGGS — Proprietors and employees of the Our Place Cafe remember the scores of New Orleans residents who packed the cafe and bar five years ago.

“We were packed every night,” said Gail Drake, who operates the cafe with her sister, Sandra. “At the time, we were supposed to open at 2 p.m. but a lot of people would be at the cafe early so we started opening in the morning at 9 or 10 a.m. You could hardly walk around. They had a good time while they were here.”

Our Place was one of several places providing respite for some 1,500 displaced New Orleans residents who boarded at Camp Gruber after Hurricane Katrina hit their hometown in 2005.

The hurricane hit the Gulf coast on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying levees in New Orleans and prompting more than 10,000 to evacuate their homes. Four days later, 39 buses brought 1,434 evacuees to Camp Gruber. Over the next month, the number of evacuees at Gruber dwindled to 13, then they were moved to hotels or apartments.

During their stay, Katrina evacuees spent a lot of time in Braggs, a town of fewer than 400 people. Braggs Grocery and Cafe, a one-fifth mile walk from Camp Gruber’s front gate, catered to the demand for laundry detergent, padlocks, cigarettes — and hair straightener/relaxer. A majority of the evacuees were African American.

Four blocks to the south, evacuees had some good times at Our Place Cafe, which sold beer on tap with 3.2 percent alcohol. The cafe also had pool, pinball and a jukebox.

They also followed the tradition of the Camp Gruber soldiers and other customers by signing their names and writing messages on the walls.

Those messages scrawled in 2005 are lost among the hundreds posted since then.

“There’s no way we can even tell where they are, with so many soldiers,” cafe employee Lucy Deeks said, scanning the cluttered walls.

Finally, some of those names, declaring themselves as “N.O. Survivor,” are found in a corner, under a lighted palm tree.

“We kind of moved things around since then,” Deeks said.

“We were pretty busy then,” she recalled. “They’d come down from Camp Gruber, then pile back into someone’s pickup and ride back to the gates. We had a lot of good times and lots of pictures of them. The pictures are in a box somewhere, no telling where.”

Drake said one New Orleans woman once cooked Cajun dishes for people at the cafe.

“We were busy all the time,” Drake said. “They were really good people. Nice people.”

Two went on to live, at least temporarily, in Muskogee she said.

“One passed away a few years ago. Another, Pete, moved out of town,” she said. “If there are any of them still in Muskogee, I’d still like to get a hold of them.”

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com.