Alexandria

Alexandria emerged as the major city in central Louisiana after the seat of justice for Rapides Post was transferred about 1797 from the north to the south bank of Red River, where most of the population was located by 1799. Its rapid growth was spurred by Alexander Fulton's introduction of the cotton gin in 1800; within two years he had begun clearing land and opening roads, and in 1805 his surveyor, Frederick Walther, laid out the Town of Alexandria as eighty square blocks between present-day Jackson Street, Tenth Street, Overton Street, and the river around a public square. Tradition holds that the town was named for a young Fulton daughter. After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Alexandria became the seat of justice when the act creating Rapides County became law on April 10, 1805. Trade, business, and agriculture expanded with steamboat service, and in late December 1814 the first steamboat, Enterprise, captained by Henry Miller Shreve, docked there. The state legislature granted Alexandria a charter in 1818. Because rapids immediately to the north made it the head of navigation on Red River from July to January, it grew as a shipping point and developed newspapers in 1810, semi-public schools in 1818, banks in 1823, and libraries in 1824. In the decades before the Civil War, Alexandria became the most important trade and social center for the plantation system in Central Louisiana, and agricultural activity led to construction in 1837 of the first railroad west of the Mississippi by Ralph Smith-Smith, with its depot at Courthouse Square. During the last two years of the Civil War, Alexandria was the focus of military activity in Louisiana: on March 7, 1863, by order of Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith, it became headquarters of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department; two months later it was briefly occupied by a Union raiding force under General Nathaniel P. Banks with naval support from Admiral David D. Porter; and after a second Union invasion of the Red River valley in April 1864 was repelled by Confederate forces under General Richard Taylor, retreating Union troops burned Alexandria on Friday, May 13, 1864, destroying all courthouse and municipal records.

Alexandria, Louisiana · United States