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Mooringsport
Mooringsport became the first community in North Caddo
Parish to have permanent settlement.
1
Timothy Mooring migrated to Caddo Parish on a wagon
train in 1837 from Henderson County, Tennessee, settling
with his wife, Eliza Ann Bryan, and their nine children.
(They would have four more children after settling in
Louisiana.) Mooring established a ferry across Twelve
Mile Bayou that would connect the cotton shipments from
Shreveport to the present-day Mooringsport. A shed was
constructed near the ferry to protect the cotton that
was stacked on the waterfront. The ferry eventually
became known as Mooring’s Port.
2
The Old Mooringsport Road
was built in the 1840’s or 1850’s as settlers needed a
connection with Shreveport in order to sell their goods.
It reportedly took a full day to travel to Shreveport by
wagon. The town received a postal service in 1854, and
the mail was carried by horseback.
3
An official post office
opened in 1870.
4
In the 1870’s and 1880’s the town served as a major
steamboat route in the transporting of cotton and other
goods west to Texas.
5
A trestle bridge was built for railroad traffic in 1897
when the railroad was completed through Mooringsport.
6
However, in the 1890’s the steamboats suffered from the
increase in the use of railroads.
7
J. F. Ivey was the first
mayor in 1910, the year that oil drilling began on Caddo
Lake.
In 1914 a vertical lift
drawbridge was built over Caddo Lake, making the ferries
obsolete. Later on a new bridge was constructed over
Caddo Lake, and the drawbridge was no longer used. It
was added to the National Register of Historic Places in
1996.
9
A tornado hit the area in
1897 and again in 1941, devastating the town’s economy.
It also suffered when the business district was
destroyed in 1920 and again in 1928. The Great
Depression had a large impact on the town and it never
fully recovered.
10
In the mid-1950’s Caddo
Parish schools were combined, causing the small towns in
northern Caddo Parish to share a high school. The grade
school remained in Mooringsport until it closed in the
mid-1970s. It later reopened and had a $0.5 million
restoration project. The Mooringsport School was built
in 1911.
11
There’s a legend told in
Mooringsport about Indians, who always visited
Shreveport with an abundant supply of lead, which they
traded for supplies. Even after they handed over their
land, they continued to trade with lead. Although
townspeople followed them, they always lost track of
them along Black Bayou northeast of Mooringsport and
never learned the source of the lead.
12
The town was without a jail for fifty-two
years until a new jail, along with a new office for the
police chief, was added to the Town Hall. The fire
station was built in 1974 and was furnished with two
fire trucks operated by the volunteer fire department.
The Lieberman plant furnishes electricity for the
Ark-La-Tex area.
13
The Mooringsport Mini-Museum, located at
Croom and Main Streets, opened on October 17, 1987 as
the town celebrated its 150th anniversary. The museum
contains many items related to Mooringsport and the
surrounding areas.
14
The grocery store next to the museum bears a mural on
its wall that was painted by the Homemaker’s Club
volunteers under the supervision of Jeff Kennedy, a
Centenary College art graduate. The mural depicts the
town at its peak during the steamboat era.
15
The town is also home to Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter,
who grew up in the area in the early 1900s.
References
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