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Belcher
Originally known as Horseshoe, the town
began in the late 1800’s or early
1900’s when
steamboat
landings at Rush Point and Briarfield on the
Red River
were abandoned for
railroad transportation.
1
The town’s name was derived from the bayou of the same
name and shape on which it was located with the
community being on the inner side of the horseshoe.
2
The name changed to “Belcher Town” and then to “Belcher”
in honor of plantation owner John Clinton Belcher, on
whose plantation the railroad was built.
3
The Texarkana, Shreveport, and Natchez Railroad went
through Belcher in 1889.
4
 Much of the land surrounding U. S.
Highway 71 was swampy, and the land had to be cleared
and drained as settlers moved near the railroad. At
first the land was owned mainly by several men, but homesites and small plantations eventually came into
being. There was no main highway through the town; only
trails led between the houses and stores. A bridge
across the bayou was built to connect the two parts of
Belcher.
5
The first post office was located in the
home of Jim W. Dixon, as his wife, Hattie Hall Dixon,
was appointed as the first postmaster in 1899.
6
The post office was later moved into the Glassell
Brothers Store and then into Gleason’s Store.
7
 Cotton and corn became the community’s
staple crops
because of the alluvial soil of the Red
River.
8
Today the main
crops are livestock, cotton, and
soybeans.9
About one-half mile east of
Belcher is the Belcher mound. This Caddo culture most
likely co-existed with the Bossier culture. Beginning in
1959 and continuing on through the next ten years, Webb
and his associates excavated the mound finding levels
where houses had been built, burned, and new ones built
over them. The burials at this mound were beneath the
houses in pits.
10
The school originally had eleven grades,
but the school board later upped it to twelve grades.
The high school eventually closed, but the elementary
school was there for a number of years. The first school
was built in 1902 and was a two-story frame building.
The brick school was built in 1927.
11
References
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