The Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail project is expanding its scope with a new series designed to help historic villages, towns, neighborhoods, and/or cities in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, investigate three different versions of their communities: the past, the present, and the future. Team members include Dr. Gary Joiner, Mik Barnes, Jaclyn Tripp, Dr. Laura Meiki, Dr. Jolivette Anderson-Douong, Dr. Amy Rosner, Dr. Rolonda Teal, and Brenton Metzler. This month's focus is the Stoner Hill neighborhood. Shreveport, La. (KTAL/KMSS)— SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) - The Stoner Hill neighborhood is every bit as old as downtown Shreveport. Captain Henry Miller Shreve considered it a threat and was determined to kill it because he could not control it. He almost succeeded. Digital Map of the Stoner Hill neighborhood. Shreveport neighborhood boundaries are in red. The original course of Bayou Pierre is in Blue. The Red River in 1838 is pink, and sand bars are gold—research and Cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D. Stoner Hill is roughly bounded on the north by the Red River and the old Silver Lake bed. Its western boundary follows Cornwell Street, East Olive Street, Holly Street, East Dalzell Street, Cornwell Street again, East Wilkinson Street, Woodlawn Avene, East Washington Street, Youree Drive, and East Kings Highway. The eastern boundary follows the old bed (and some existing remnants) of Bayou Pierre. The intersection of East Kings Highway and Bayou Pierre forms the southern boundary. When the group that became the Shrevetown Company searched for a site of the place that would become Shreveport, they first looked at Coates Bluff in Stoner Hill at the east end of East Olive Street. A second site was the Bennett and Cane Trading Post, east of the Spring Street Museum. The latter won because William Bennett, James Huntington Cane, and Bennett’s wife, Mary (later also Cane’s wife) were partners in the company. The trading post was on a straight stretch of the river, while Coates Bluff held an economically strategic place to the south. Digital map of Stoner Hill neighborhood. High-resolution aerial photography provided by the Northwest Louisiana Council of Governments (NBCOG). Research and cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D. For hundreds of years, the Red River was clogged by a giant logjam called The Great Raft. From 1714, when the first map shows the foot of the Raft, until the 1870s, it periodically closed parts of the river from Natchitoches up to at least Foreman, Arkansas. The Raft created lakelike stretches of open water as the logs separated from each other or reformed new jams. The Bennett and Cane Trading Post was located on one of these open stretches of water. River water had to go somewhere as the Raft grew upstream and rotted at its foot. Side channels east and west of the river periodically became the river. The primary channel on the west side was Bayou Pierre. It was navigable from where it left the Red River at the intersection of Clyde Fant Parkway and East Stoner Avenue to where it reentered the river near Grand Ecore in Natchitoches Parish. The Red River was considered vital to the national interest, and Congress authorized the first bill to remove the Raft in 1828. That first attempt, by Army Lieutenant Sewell, failed. Captain Henry Miller Shreve was hired by the United States Engineers (US Army) to break up the Raft and open the river for navigation. Shreve had the authority to use any means to open the river. This included blocking smaller streams and changing the river’s course if needed. This commercial bulletin showed arrivals into New Orleans from Coates Bluff, Louisiana. (Commercial Bulletin, Price-Current and Shopping List, New Orleans, La., Apr. 11, 1835 In 1831, the first steamboat, the Alps, made it through the Raft. Shreve was cantankerous at the best of times, and he held grudges. When Bayou Pierre became a viable channel, Shreve wanted to eliminate any competition. He clogged the opening on the north end with logs. He also removed a large peninsula created by a sharp curve, or meander, by making it an island. Marine List printed in The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Apr. 16, 1837, shows goods from Coates Bluff entering the Port of New Orleans. Shreve wanted to straighten the Red River, but two adversaries lived on the western side of this bend. He tried to destroy their livelihoods. Diagram of the Great Raft in the Red River, reduced from a sketch by Henry Miller Shreve. (Source: General public acts of Congress, respecting the sale and disposition, United States statues, Dept. of the Treasury, General Land Office, Vol. II, Printed by Gales and Seaton, 1838) The first was Larkin Edwards, the longtime interpreter of the Caddos, who lived there and was married to a daughter of the Great Caddo Chief Tarshar. The second was James “Jim” Coates, who operated a store and US Post Office on the bluff. The post office became official on April 10, 1838, with John C. Green as postmaster. Natchitoches, August 1866 court case, Wright & Williams vs. Cane et al., appeal from the district court, Parish of Bossier. Louisiana Annual Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in The Supreme Court of Louisiana for the year 1866, printed by Bloomfield & Steel, New Orleans, 1867. Shreve failed against Edwards but succeeded against Coates. Coates Bluff stood on that sharp meander bow above Bayou Pierre and the Red River. It was a natural place for settlers and travelers to drop off or receive mail and the Caddos to trade. Shreve cut a canal across the neck of the peninsula and named the cut after Bushrod Jenkins, thus diverting any blame from Coates to the federal authorities. The Caddo Treaty of 1835 ended the Caddos as an issue. Digital map of portions of Federal Patent Survey maps of Township 18 North, Ranges 13 and 14 West, and Township 17 North, Range 14 West Caddo OParish, Louisiana. A copy of the original is at the Louisiana Land Office, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Georectification by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D. The red square indicates the location of the Coates Bluff Post Office. Larkin Edwards died on November 20, 1841, after Shreve left for St. Louis, never to return. Edwards is buried in an unmarked grave on Coates Bluff, just north of Caddo Magnet High School. One last oddity in this saga was that as Shreve made canal cuts wherever he wished, the federal government surveyed the lands on both sides of the river. Two teams worked independently on each side of the river. If Shreve had worked after the teams had surveyed, the parish boundaries would have remained the same. If he preceded the teams, the parish boundaries reflected the change. A portion of the Federal Patent Survey map of Township 17 North, Range 14 West (1856), Caddo Parish, Louisiana. A copy of the original is located at the Louisiana Land Office, Baton Rouge. Thus, his peninsular cut on Mr. Wright’s land made Wright Island in the City of Shreveport but in Bossier Parish. Stoner Hill, therefore, predates Shreveport as a community. Captain Shreve did not kill it. The post office was moved to the site of downtown Shreveport, but the beginnings of Stoner Hill were well-established. On another interesting note, Larkin Edwards sold six hundred and forty acres on Jan. 24, 1835, to persons who established the town of Shreveport. Natchitoches, August 1866 court case, Wright & Williams vs. Cane et al., appeal from the district court, Parish of Bossier. Louisiana Annual Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in The Supreme Court of Louisiana for the year 1866, printed by Bloomfield & Steel, New Orleans, 1867. And now you know. This article is the first in a series of articles on Stoner Hill's incredible history. Sources: Milton Dunn, “Steamboats that Plied Red River Prior to War Between the States, Up to 1904,” Melrose Collection, Folder 109, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Eugene P. Watson Memorial Library, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana, 1920.O.L. Barker, A Historical Account of the Red River as an Inland Waterway. M.A. thesis, Department of History, University of Colorado, 1929.For an extended discussion of Henry Miller Shreve, see Marguerite Plummer and Gary D. Joiner, Historic Shreveport- Bossier City, ( San Antonio, Texas , 2000). Louisiana Annual reports of Cases Argued and Determined in The Supreme Court of Louisiana for the year 1866, printed by Bloomfield & Steel, New Orleans, 1867. Arkansas Gazette, June 22 and 29, 1831. Eric J. Brock, “The Post Office Buildings, and Rate Hikes, are also part of Shreveport History,” Presence of the Past, Shreveport Journal, December 32, 1994.Brock, “Downtown stands on Larkin Edwards’ Land,” Presence of the Past, Shreveport Journal, January 20, 1996.Brock, “A cemetery guide of Shreveport’s founders,” Presence of the Past, Shreveport Journal, April 27, 1996. General public acts of Congress, respecting the sale and disposition, United States statues, Dept. of the Treasury, General Land Office, Vol. II, Printed by Gales and Seaton, 1838.