On the banks of the Red River in Shreveport
July 8th, 2006
We’re actually standing on the side of the river where the land there is called Bossier City, not Shreveport. Shreveport is on the other side of the river. Bossier and Shreve were two of the big guys who brought civilization to the area.
The town was founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company, a development corporation established to start a town at the meeting point of the Red River and the Texas Trail. The Red River was cleared and made newly navigable by Captain Henry Miller Shreve, who commanded the United States Army Corps of Engineers. An 180-mile (289 km) long raft of debris had previously clogged passage by Shreve’s riverboat, the Heliopolis, that was specially designed to remove river debris. In his honor, the company and the village of Shreve Town were named. On March 20, 1839, the town was incorporated as “Shreveport,” and in 1871 it became a city.
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