Gilliam, Louisiana, was named for R.L. "Bob” Gilliam, who donated right-of-way from his property for the T.S. & N. Railroad between Texarkana and Shreveport on the understanding that it would establish a depot on Red Bayou and name it Gilliam, which it did in the late 1890s. Trains operated on the line until the 1960s, and cotton was the area's economic mainstay, later joined by oil-related activity after oil was discovered in northwestern Caddo Parish in 1904. By 1898 the new town had a post office, physician, drug store, public gin, mercantile store, and brick-making industry. In 1902 flooding followed a break in the Red River levee near Gilliam, and in 1908 a cyclone destroyed all homes except the Noels', killing about 40 people and sending 140 to hospitals; the railroad then loaned boxcars for storage and provided fresh water until other means were restored. Commercial growth continued through stores operated by families including Cox, Byers, Douglas, Lay, and Adger, and Will Adger Sr., who opened a general mercantile store in 1916, later joined in 1939 by W.E. Adger Jr. Main Street developed into a busy community with a depot, post office, bank, barber shop, drug store, ice house, gas station, cotton gins, and a telephone office in a home, while blacksmiths and other craftsmen served the farming community. Religious life included the Methodist Episcopal church established in 1900, rebuilt after the 1908 cyclone and later known as Gilliam United Methodist Church after a 1968 denominational merger, and the Linda Lay Memorial Baptist Church, organized on June 6, 1919, with 12 charter members. The town had an elementary school until 1940, when it was consolidated with Belcher School, and its agricultural life continued to center on cotton, later joined by corn and soybeans, with farm gins replaced over time by larger mechanized gins.