Historic Shreveport-Bossier

THE GREAT RAFT
The metropolitan area of Shreveport and Bossier City, Louisiana, often referred to as Shreveport-
Bossier, began as a commercial venture. The idea of an inland port on the Red River took root in the
mind of Captain Henry Miller Shreve of Kentucky, when he brought his flagship Enterprise to
Natchitoches toward the end of the War of 1812. Known as the “Superintendent of the Western
Waters” for his success in clearing the western rivers of obstructions to navigation, Shreve saw the
“Great Raft”—the massive logjams that clogged the Red River north from Natchitoches for more than
400 river miles—as a challenge to his ingenuity. The Raft had been there for hundreds of years and
was not unknown to Shreve. The French explorer, Juchereau St. Denis, who established the fort and
settlement at Natchitoches, had explored the bayous and rivers north of Natchitoches and had
described the Great Raft that blocked his passage up the Red River.
A hundred years later, Captain Shreve believed he could clear the obstructions and turn the Red
River into a navigable inland waterway that would serve a vast area of mid-America. In 1828 Shreve
convinced the Jackson administration to award him a contract to clear a navigation channel through
the Raft northward from its southern end to Arkansas.
❖
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
documented the clearing of the Raft
in 1873. In this photograph, a shore
crew pulls logs aboard a raft on which
a steam-powered saw is mounted to
saw the logs into smaller pieces that
will float downstream. Large logs were
pulled onto the bank, perhaps to be
used to add to the small settlement
in the background.
COURTESY LSU IN SHREVEPORT,
NOEL MEMORIAL LIBRARY ARCHIVES.
CHAPTER I ✦ 5