Settlement of Calcasieu Louisiana Contributed by Margaret Rentrop Moore Source: Southwest Louisiana Biographical & Historical by William Henry Perrin; published 1891 page 123. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ The Settlement of Calcasieu. -This parish, like most of the others in Southwest Louisiana, has quite a mixed population, consisting of Creoles, Acadians, Americans, from half a dozen or a dozen different States, a few Indians, etc. The Lake Charles Echo of October 24, 1890, says of the peo- pling of Calcasieu: " In the early days of America, when the Spaniards were settling Louisiana and Mexico, while Texas was a wild prairie region, the land unknown on the outskirts or confines of two great colonies, one having its seat in the famed palaces of the Montezumas, and the other having its center in the valley of the wooded banked father of waters, the great continent-draining Mis- sissippi, the present region of Calcasieu was the home of a few tribes of Indians and the wild deer. When Texas loomed up into a great country, and as the Lone Star State severed her connection with Mexico, our section remained the outskirt between Louisiana and Texas. Calcasieu River was then known as the Rio Honda. The lands lying between it and the Sabine River was a disputed territory claimed by the two great colonies. And while a few adventurous pioneers came into the section east of the river tinder what are known as Spanish grants from the Louisiana colonial authorities, a few others, perhaps two hundred and fifty, settled in the western region under what were termed Rio Honda claims "Among the Indians in the western region afterward conceded to the United States as a part of Louisiana, from an unknown origin, sprung a race of people of mixed ancestry, known as Red Bones. These and a few others for many years constituted the entire population of Calcasieu, attached to St. Landry, from which it was separated about the year 1840, and designated the parish of Calca- sieu. Later a part was taken from this territory in forming the parish of Ver- non; and again, a part was taken in creating the parish of Cameron; which two parishes are now united with Calcasieu in the Judicial district. The Rio Honda lost its Indian name and acquired that of Quelque Shone, from which again, by those strange changes which time effects without the reason being retained, it passed into the euphonious name of Calcasieu, whence may be attributed the pronunciation, 'Culcashu,' yet given it by many old inhabitants."