Bastrop, Louisiana

City: Bastrop

County: Morehouse

State: Louisiana

Lat/Long: 32.7500, -91.8667

Settlers began arriving in what would become Bastrop after the Louisiana Purchase. When the Louisiana State Legislature organized Morehouse Parish in 1844, it selected the site on which Bastrop stands to be the parish seat. More settlers arrived, and in 1852, the legislature incorporated the town. During the Civil War, Bastrop remained a Confederate stronghold until January 1865, when the U.S. Third Negro Cavalry under the command of Colonel E. D. Osband occupied the town as part of an expedition from Memphis to northeastern Louisiana.

Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1892), 2:191; John D. Winters, The Civil War in Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 413-14.