Southwest Louisiana History
The first citizens to settle on the lake were a married couple from Bordeaux, France named LeBleu. For a while following their 1771 arrival, they lived in peaceful coexistence with several tribes of Indians until pioneers joined them.
Among the first of these newcomers was a man named Charles Sallier, also from France. He settled near the shores of the lake, gave his name to young Catherine LeBleu and subsequently to the lake and the community, originally called Charley’s Lake.
Settlers who came at the turn of the century acquired their property from the Indians or they homesteaded the Rio Hondo lands. Original titles were based on Spanish grants in return for some stipulated service. The Rio Hondo, which flowed through Lake Charles was later called Quelqueshue, an Indian term meaning “Crying Eagle”, and later, Calcasieu.
Little is known of these early residents except that they were a mixture of English, French, Spanish and Dutch. Legend has it that Jean Lafitte, the buccaneer, frequented Lake Charles and harbored his ships in local waters.
Calcasieu Parish was created out of the western part of St. Landry. It was sparsely inhabited with only 2,000 people living within the 6,000 square miles, which encompassed Allen, Beauregard, Jeff Davis and part of Cameron Parish. This area was referred to as Imperial Calcasieu, and not until 1852 did Lake Charles become the seat of Calcasieu Parish. The town was incorporated in 1867 with at citizenry of about 400. The first mayor was J. W. Bryan.
Growth was fairly slow until Captain Daniel Goos came in 1855. He established a lumber mill and schooner dock, now Goosport, and promoted a profitable trade with Texas and Mexican ports by sending his schooners down river into the Gulf of Mexico. After the railroad came in, a new era really began.
In 1886, the Greater Lake Charles Chamber of Commerce had its beginnings with a man who spent $2,000 in one-cent stamps to mail promotional material about the community. Soon after, the first newspaper, “The American,” was founded in 1897.
A new industry, rice milling, was made possible when Dr. Seaman A. Knapp raised some capital in New York, built a mill and established a cash system of selling rice. He also started an organization known as the “Boys’ Corn Club,” which later evolved into the present nationwide 4-H Clubs.
The first public school in Lake Charles opened in 1882 with 203 students. John McNeese, the first parish school superintendent, is the man for whom McNeese State University is named.
Years passed, and then in the mid 1920’s, people of the town voted on local bonds, dredged a deep water channel to the Gulf, built their own dock facilities and established Lake Charles as a deep water port. The Federal Government, reluctant earlier, helped to shorten the route by sending aid to construct a more direct channel, 40’ deep and 400’ wide. The distance is just 34 miles from Lake Charles to the sea. As a result, there now stands a nearly three billion dollar chemical complex adjacent to the ship channel.
Fame first came to Lake Charles as a lumber producing area, then as a sulfur-mining center where the world famous Frasch process, still in use, was developed. The creation of the Port of Lake Charles, the presence of numerous oil fields in the area and the creation of petrochemical and chemical complexes have industrialized the community, giving it a broad and stable base.
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