The Bishop Martin house, which sits across from the church and
a block from the courthouse, was built in the 1850s.
A long, long time ago, when people in Louisiana
still spoke French and "les américains " were
safely occupied fighting the natives in the foothills
of the Appalachians, the city of Natchitoches was
founded by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis.

St. Denis's  town, first platted in 1714, served as a
trading post with Spanish Mexico along the
Camino Real, the original Spanish colonial road.
With its location right on the Red River and at the
base of the great Red River Raft (a log jam that
effectively dammed the river, which created a
large basin suitable for river traffic), the town
quickly developed into a thriving farming center.  

Along the Red River surrounding Natchitoches,
French men and women - many born in New
Orleans - traversed the swampy hinterlands of
northern Louisiana to build cotton and tobacco
plantations, manned by slaves from the
Caribbean. In this prosperous yet isolated
environment, a unique blending of  
African-Caribbean, French, and Spanish cultures
gave the area a distinctive flair - what we now
simply call "Creole," meaning "created."

The use of the term "creole"  came into
widespread use after the Louisiana Purchase of
1803. The original settlers of the area wanted to
distinguish between themselves and the
Americans who were coming to settle in their
new territory and bringing their industrious and
business-oriented English habits with them.

Those habits almost became a death knell for
Natchitoches. The Americans wanted to clear the
Red River Raft to make the river navigable all the
way into Arkansas Territory. Captain Henry
Shreve of the Army Corps of Engineers was given
this task, and the first of many clearings was
completed by 1839. Gradually, the loss of this
natural dam forced the river to shift its course,
and in a matter of years, Natchitoches found  
itself on the banks of an isolated oxbow lake. The
river had moved to the east.

Ever resourceful, the citizens and the corps
created dams at both ends of the lake to link with
the Red River. Today, the Cane River Lake, which
follows the old ancient path of the Red River, runs
through Natchitoches's picturesque downtown.

Natchitoches continued to thrive well past the
Civil War. In 1884, the Northwestern State
University was founded to train teachers. Today,
this university is a cultural resource center for
the Creole heritage.

With all its history, Natchitoches has become a
true  multi-cultural town. And a major tourist
attraction, too. The Cane River Creole National
Heritage Area is just south of the city, and the
original town of  Natchitoches itself is a national
historic district. French architectural influence is
evident on Front Street, which faces Cane River,
and houses from different periods and ethnicities
- French colonial, African - Creole,  antebellum
American, Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Prairie style
- give the town core an intimate feeling.

Natchitoches is worth an extended exploration!
Natchitoches:
It's Pronounced Naka-dish
Whenever you visit a town, always try to get away from the Main
Street - it pays off to wander. I found this brick building, with iron
shutter doors and French iron work along a side street off of Front
Street. I don't know much about the building, but it  definitely stood
out as vintage Natchitoches architecture.
Natchitoches street scene
If Front Street looks familiar, that's because the ultimate
chick-flick, Steel Magnolias, was filmed in Natchitoches. The
author of the book and play lives in a restored Creole
plantation house along the Cane River Lake.
An interior door at a sharecropper's house
(formerly a cabin occupied by slaves) at the
Oakland Plantation, an 1830s Creole
Plantation operated by the National Park
Service.
Natchitoches is about an hour south of
Shreveport on Louisiana State Highway 1, or
US Interstate 49. It also sits directly on the
Camino Real, the ancient Spanish Colonial
Road, which parallels LA 6.