Visit Natchitoches Louisiana

It is called Natchitoches, Louisiana. And of course when you look at it, it could be Natchitoches. But it was an Indian name and of course our founder was a French-Canadian explorer. And we are not quite sure how they came about that spelling or that pronunciation. But we know we are occupied by the French and then we were Spanish territory.

I am sure they added their own little version to it over the course of the last 300 years is just been referred to as Natchitoches. And some people pronounce Nakadish, Nakatish. We just don’t care. We want everybody to come here and just experience the Southern hospitality and how do you want to stay, it is fun.

When we were founded in 1714, this body of water was actually the Red River. And you can still see where the natural levees came through. This was as far north as our founder Louis St. Disney. Could actually go on to the Red River because it was major log jam that comes from great raft, it stretched about a 100 miles going up toward where Louisiana is now.

At that point in time in 1714, St. Disney got off here and what was in the Red River and he established the French Military that we know of as Fort St. John Baptist. But he is doing that and establishing that port site legal to French marine here to guard it and some provisions makes the Natchitoches oldest permanent European settlement in all of the Louisiana territory.

This is what we call Front Street, the brick that you see down here on Front Street we are actually laid down right on top of the dirt pass that we are here. There are over 100 years old so these are the original bricks that were put down in 1903. We will begin right here with the Kaffie Frederick Store. Established in 1863, this wonderful marking tale store is really hasn’t changed much since about the 1900’s.