Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana is the third largest metropolitan city in the state of Louisiana in the United States of America. Located in Caddo Parish (which it shares with Bossier City,) it is the NorthEastern most city in the state.

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 newly navigable) by Captain Henry Miller Shreve, who commanded the US Army Corps of Engineers. An 180 mile long raft of debris had previously clogged passage. In his honor the company and the village of Shreve Town were named. On March 20, 1839 the town was incorperated as "Shreveport." In 1871, it became a city.

Shreveport was originally contained within the boundaries of a section of land sold to the company by the indigenous Caddo Indians in the year of 1835. In 1838 Caddo Parish was made out of Natchitoches (pronounced "NACK-O-DISH") Parish and Shreve Town became the parish seat. Shreveport remains the parish seat of Caddo Parish today. (In Louisiana "parishes" take the place of what would normally be called counties.)

Originaly the town was as large as 64 city blocks deivided by eight streets running West from the Red River, and eight streets running South from Cross Bayou, one of it's tributaries. Today the 64 block area is the city's CBD (central business district) and is a National Register of Historic Places listed area.

Shreveport and Bossier City have six historic districts and a plethora of NR listed landmarks. In fact, Shreveport is second only to New Orleans among LA cities with many historic landmarks. In particular, the McNeill Street Pumping Station, an 1887 waterworks that is still in use, is a unique example of it's type. Also located in Shreveport is Barksdale Air Force Base, opened in 1944 as Barksdale Army Air Field. It came into national attention recently when President George W. Bush was taken there during the September 11th attacks.

The Red River, opened by Shreve in the 1830s, remained navigable until 1914 when disuse, owing to the rise of the railroad as the preferred means of transporting goods and people, allowed it to begin silting up. Not until the 1990s was navigation of the river again possible to Shreveport. Today the port of Shreveport-Bossier City is being developed once again as a shipping center.

In present time, Shreveport is a very busy metro city, host to various riverboat casinos and second in Louisana tourism only to New Orleans. The city boasts the world's largest rose garden, appropriately enough called The National Rose Garden. The Red River Revel is a yearly event featuring local music, food and entertainers and draws in hundreds of thousands of individuals from across the tri-state area.