The History of Lake Charles, Louisiana follows the city's journey from its origins in the 18th century to modern times.
While several Indian tribes are known to have lived in the area of modern Lake Charles, the first European people, of French, Spanish, English, and Dutch descent, arrived in the 1760s. At the time, the area was covered with dense pine and baldcypress forests. Oral tradition holds that Jean Lafitte frequented Contraband Bayou and the lake before and after the War of 1812.
M. and Mme. LeBleu of Bordeaux, France were the first recorded Europeans to settle the area around 1781. The area they settled is now known as the LeBleu Settlement. Charles Sallier married LeBleu's daughter, Catherine. The Salliers built their home on the shell beach where Lake Charles now stands. Afterwards, the lake became known as "Charlie's lake." By 1860 this area was called "Charles Town." Many of Charles Sallier's descendants are buried in Sallier Cemetery, near St. Patrick's Hospital.
The Rio Hondo, which flowed through Lake Charles, was later called Quelqueshue, an Indian term meaning "Crying Eagle," and still later, Calcasieu. On March 7, 1861, Lake Charles was incorporated as the town of Charleston, Louisiana.
The growth of the city was fairly slow until Captain Daniel Goos, a Frisian by birth, came in 1855. Goos established a lumber mill and schooner dock, now called Goosport, and promoted a profitable trade with Texas and Mexican ports by sending his schooner down-river into the Gulf of Mexico. Until the arrival of Goos, a man named Jacob Ryan dominated the lumber industry. Between 1817 and 1855, the timber provided by Longleaf Pines and Baldcypress remained the primary industry.
Jacob Ryan convinced the state government to move the parish seat to Lake Charles from its former location at Marion, which was about 8 miles upriver. Later that year, Ryan and Samuel Kirby transferred the parish courthouse and jail by barge to Lake Charles, which was at that time still called Charleston. Six years after the city was incorporated, dissatisfaction over the name Charleston arose. On March 16, 1867, Charleston, Louisiana, was incorporated into the town of Lake Charles.
By the time of the U.S. Civil War, many English and northeastern Americans, along with a large influx of continental Europeans and Jewish people, had come to settle the area. Attitudes toward slavery in Lake Charles were mixed as slavery was secondary to business interests. Fewer than 5% of the population were slaves. The citizenry finally became involved in the war, and young men of local families went to serve the Confederacy.
After the Civil War, Lake Charles had become a major lumber town. The mills of the area were swamped with orders. The 1880s saw what was a small sawmill village develop into a boom town. This was largely due to the innovative advertising methods of a man named J.B. Watkins. With his astounding $200,000 advertising campaign, the town grew 400% in the '80s.
By the 1890s, finer homes were being built. Carpenters struggled to outbuild each other with their use of elaborate fretwork and Victorian era decoration. Fancy spindles, newel posts, soldiers and paneled doors - all native of native pine - filled the houses.
The courthouse donated by Ryan and Kirby was replaced many times, a cypress wood two-story one in 1872, then a brick one in 1890. The 1890 courthouse was destroyed in the "Great Fire of 1910." The historic Calcasieu Courthouse was completed in 1912, two months after the Louisiana legislature divided old "Imperial Calcasieu" parish into the current parishes of Allen, Beauregard, Cameron, Jefferson Davis and Calcasieu.
After World War II Lake Charles experienced industrial growth with the onset of the petrochemical refining industries. The city grew to a height of 80,000 people in the early 1980s, but with economic recession, the population declined. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 71,757.
Pinnacle Entertainment opened their first riverboat casino in the Lake Charles area in May 2005. The name of the resort, L'Auberge du Lac, comes from the French for "The Lake's Inn." The casino includes an 18-hole, championship golf course designed by Tom Fazio, several dining venues, a spa and salon, a pool area complete with lazy river, and several retail stores. It employs over 2000 citizens.
Lake Charles suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Rita, which struck the town early September 24, 2005. On September 22, Mayor Randy Roach ordered a mandatory evacuation of Lake Charles, and approximately 90% of the residents evacuated prior to the storm. Evacuees were asked not to return for 48 hours, due to the wind damage and flooding. There was extensive damage to the city's electrical grid as some areas took as long as three weeks to restore power. Many apartment residents had to be evicted because of the mold caused by the hurricane.
As part of the city's recovery from Hurricane Rita, elected officials proposed a plan to renovate the downtown area to make it more pedestrian-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing. Charrettes were held presenting architectural concept drawings and ideas of what downtown Lake Charles could look like in future years. Of primary concern was quality and affordable housing to help revitalize the area, and at the same time provide more housing for the housing shortage in the last few years. A parish-wide ballot initiative to increase sales and property taxes for 20 years to fund this proposal and numerous local road projects was rejected by taxpayers on July 15, 2006.
OnJune 20, 2006aCitgo Petroleum Plant located in Westlake released between 15,000 and 18,000 barrels of oil into the Calcasieu Ship Channel. The United States Coast Guard was called in to contain the spilled oil which flowed down the Calcasieu River; closures of many waterways included the Calcasieu River Channel and one mile of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The Port of Lake Charles remained closed for some time after the disaster due to contamination.[1]
Oil prices surged to over $74 per barrel in part due to the Citgo spillage. The Calcasieu Refining Co., which normally processes 765,000 barrels a day, was at low levels weeks after the accident.[2]
