Louisiana History

        The United State of American negotiated the purchase of Louisiana Purchase from French in 1803.  Jefferson worried if the French control the Mississippi River they might close off a vital transportation route
        to the American West. Jefferson sent the American minister in Paris to try and purchase New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle. The American minister was authorized to pay France up to $10 million for the port
        of New Orleans and the France would offer instead the entire territory of Louisiana (larger than Great Britan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal combined) for an agreed price of $15 million. This purchase
        didn't come without controversy from the Federalist, who largely opposed to this purchase.  Some disagreed on constitutional grounds, other thought France's claim to the Louisiana territory was illegitimate,
        and some feared this would extend the power of the slave holding class in government.  This purchase would become a defining moment in the Thomas Jefferson presidency by doubling the size of the United States. 

           

           Image from The American Civil War Museum

     Louisiana Facts

          (Information from UniquelyLouisiana.org)

         ♦     French explorer Robert de LaSalle named Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV.

         ♦     Louisiana is the only American state to enter the Union (1812) with a non-English speaking group as its popular majority.

         ♦     The Louisiana Purchase (1803) eventually formed all or part of 15 U.S. states (Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota,
          Texas and Wyoming).

         ♦     City of Natchitoches, formed in 1714, is the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase.

         ♦     Governmental units in Louisiana are called parishes, not counties like other states.

         ♦     The term parish comes from church units set up by the Spanish in 1699.

         ♦     Louisiana has 64 parishes.

         ♦     Louisiana has more than 4,000 miles of navigable waterways and 3,260 square miles of river surfaces, land-locked bays and inland lakes.

         ♦     Toledo Bend Reservoir is the largest man-made lake in the South and the fifth largest in the U.S.

         ♦     The Mississippi River exits the U.S. below New Orleans into the Gulf of Mexico. It is 2,350 miles long and it drains 41 percent of the U.S and three Canadian provinces' 1.2 million square miles.

         ♦     The Mississippi River drainage basin is the fourth largest in the world, exceeded only by the watersheds of the Amazon, Congo and Nile rivers.

         ♦     The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, with a length of 23.87 miles, is the world's longest bridge built entirely over water.

         ♦     The majority of the New Orleans French Quarter is actually Spanish in architecture.

         ♦     Centenary College, formed in Jackson in 1825 and later moved to Shreveport, is the oldest chartered college west of the Mississippi River.

         ♦     The first public schools in Louisiana were established in Pointe Coupee parish in 1808.

         ♦     The first church in the Louisiana Purchase area was built in 1699 near Bayou Goula by Jesuit Father Paul Du Ru during his travels with French explorer Iberville.

         ♦     St. Augustine Catholic Church in Natchitoches Parish is said to be the oldest Catholic Church formed by people of color in the U.S.

         ♦     A small chapel honoring St. John at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand is the only shrine at the exact location of a confirmed miracle in the U.S.

         ♦     The Jesuit Spirituality Center at St. Charles College in Grand was the site of the first Jesuit College in the South (1837).

         ♦     The crime spree of noted gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow was ended by an ambush in Bienville Parish in 1934.

         ♦     The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, the site of at least 10 deaths due to murder or odd circumstances, is said to be one of the most haunted structures in the U.S.

         ♦     The site of one of the oldest and most archaeologically significant North American civilizations is Poverty Point in West Carroll Parish, near Monroe, where a village among earthen mounds existed 3,500 years ago.
           It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.

         ♦     El Nuevo is the first historic shipwreck discovered off the Louisiana coast. Careful study of it is both appropriate and fortunate. Archaeologists and historians learned about the ship and the events leading to its
          loss. They also excavated well-preserved artifacts, many of which are unique. These tell about the ship's construction, its cargo, and life aboard an eighteenth century merchant vessel.

         ♦     Built on the edge of the Spanish empire, the Los settlement had both a mission and a fort (presidio). It served as the capital of the Province of Texas for 41 years. Los Adaes was a place of rare cooperation among
          the Spanish, the French, and the Caddo Indians.