Haynesville is a town in northern Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, United States, located just south of the Arkansas border. The population was 2,039 in 2020.[3]
Haynesville is known as the "Gateway to North Louisiana" and the "Butterfly Capital of Louisiana". Loice Kendrick-Lacy of Haynesville published Gardening To Attract Butterflies: The Beauty And The Beast (2012). Kendrick-Lacy begins with memories of her childhood, when she was introduced to butterflies by her grandmother.[4][5]
The town of Haynesville is the namesake of the Haynesville Shale, an upper Jurassic formation that is difficult to define[6] on a technical basis[7] but nevertheless covers a broad region of western Louisiana and east Texas and contains a large natural gas resource.[8] On March 24, 2008, Chesapeake Energy announced a new natural gas discovery in the Haynesville Shale.[9] This announcement began a new chapter in the development of the Hayneville Shale and hastened the activities of several other companies in the play.[10]
The town's churches include Baptist, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Missionary Baptist, Pentecostal, and Church of Christ. This part of the state was settled by Protestants from other parts of the South, more than by ethnic French, Louisiana Creole, Italian and Irish Catholics more typically found in the New Orleans area.
Material on the history of Haynesville can be found at the Herbert S. Ford Memorial Museum located across from the Claiborne Parish Courthouse in Homer.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.8 square miles (12.5 km2), of which 4.8 square miles (12.5 km2) is land and 0.22% is water.[12]
In May 1999, the Haynesville Police Department discovered the skeletal remains of Shannon Capers, a 13-year-old girl who had been missing since March 8, 1997. She was found in the woods behind the Mill Street Apartments on the north side of town. Capers had lived in the apartments. She was known to have been murdered by her boyfriend, a local drug dealer named Maurice Tate.[18]
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Haynesville has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.[23]
This obelisk erected in 1976 in Bicentennial Park in Haynesville is dedicated to the medical profession. The site is at the former location of a hospital.
The large Old Town Cemetery in south Haynesville contains the grave of John Sidney Garrett.
^Donna LaFleur, "Interview" Loice Kendrick-Lacy", "Authors in Shreveport" feature, 2012, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum.
^Chapman, R.T., (1951), Jurassic Development in the Haynesville Field, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana; Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions. Vol. 1, p. 40., this abstract is hosted in the archives section of the website of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
^Horn, Marty, (2009), Toward a Better Definition of Haynesville Formation, Northern Louisiana Subsurface, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Denver, Colorado.
