BAGDAD, LISBON AND THE FERRIES - CALCASIEU PARISH, LA Contributed by Margaret Rentrop Moore Source: Southwest Louisiana Biographical & Historical by William Henry Perrin; published 1891 page 166- 167 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ BAGDAD.-Not the Bagdad rendered famous by the gilded stories of Sinbad the Sailor in Arabian Night's Entertainments, but the puny village that once was at the ferry west of Lake Charles. A ferry was established there in the olden time by Reese Perkins, and was an important institution. It was the great crossing place for cattle drovers from Texas to New Orleans with fat beeves for market at the latter place. Old citizens say they can remember when as many as 1500 and 2000 crossed there in a single day. The following incident is related of the place: Reese Perkins sold the ferry and the land around it to a man named James H. Buchanan. He allowed a man named Holt to lay out a town, and they would go partners in the enter- prise. Holt laid out his town and called it Lisbon; sold all the lots he could, and at any price he could get, pocketed the money and left-perhaps joined the American colony in Canada-leaving Mr. Buchanan with the bag to hold and both ends open. Even to this day claimants turn up now and then and say they own a lot in Lisbon, and ask to have it pointed out to them. The name of Lisbon was now changed to Bagdad, but still it has prospered little. The ferry, two or three houses, a shingle mill, is about all there is of the town. The American thus deals out its views, which are sound as the " Dollars of the Fathers " on the subject of ferries generally: The ferry question is one that interests a large number of the citizens of Calcasieu parish, and especially interests every one who is interested in the development of the city of Lake Charles. It is a well known fact that a large portion of the produce of the northern part of our parish, which ought to be marketed in Lake Charles, is hauled to Lecomte, in Rapides parish, simply because of the high charges made by the ferries of the parish. Because of this, the profits arising from the traffic in produce, and in supplying the farmers with their necessaries, are lost to the citizens of our parish; and, of course, the taxes on these profits are lost by our parish, and go to swell the revenues of Rapides. Then why not have free ferries, or at least cheap ferries? Why, says one, we can't afford it; we want to raise a revenue from the public to help pay our parish expenses. And we are sorry to say that the short-sighted and suicidal policy of driving trade from our parish to another, and thus ultimately diminish ing our parish revenues by a much greater sum than it would require to main- tain free ferries at every crossing, has been adopted and carried out in the past. In order to raise a few hundred dollars from the sale of public ferries, the authorities of our parish have permitted ferries to tax the traveling public at so high a rate that farmers haul their produce two or three times as far as otherwise necessary, in order to avoid the enormous expense of ferriage. Can this parish afford the enormous and continuous loss of trade this involves? We think the people of the parish will speedily demand of their servants a radical change in this thing. Something must be wrong somewhere. Vermilion parish has about three-fourths the population of Calcasieu, and the ordinary expenses of the parish would be at least three-fourths as great as Calcasieu. The revenue of Vermilion parish last year was a little more than sixteen thousand dollars for taxes. All of her bridges and ferries are free, and tier script is worth one hundred centson the dollar. Calcasieu's revenue from taxes is over forty thousand dollars, and yet our authorities find it necessary, or think they do , to raise an additional revenue from the traveling public by selling the right to run monopoly ferries to the highest bidder, and then have not enough money to pay the jurors summoned to the district court. This system of monopoly ferries works beautifully, indeed! We arc credibly informed that a responsible party offered to enter into bonds to run a ferry at a certain point in this parish, and obligate himself to cross wagons and teams for ten cents a round trip, each. The ferry was made a monopoly, and sold to the highest bidder, and the price was limited to eighty cents per round trip for wagon and team. It must be a great pleasure for the poor farmers and log men to pay eight times as much as necessary in order to cross the stream. We are informed that the party above referred to is ready to enter he into an agreement yet to give a cheap ferry. Now,we are not charging anyone in particular with the wrong of establishing these monopolies. If it is the State law that does it, let us agitate until the law is changed. If it is the fault or mistake of the police jury, let us hammer away until the mistake is remedied. Let the people come to the front and de mand justice, and they will get it.-Perrin.