[3] John Murrell moved his family from Arkansas to the Flat Lick Bayou area about 6 miles west of present-day Homer in 1818, and they became the first known non-natives to permanently settle in Claiborne Parish.

[4][5][6] As the population began swelling in what was then the western part of the parish, the seat was moved to Overton (another modern ghost town found near Minden) in 1836, because of its position at the head of the navigable portion of Dorcheat Bayou.

Due to flooding and health concerns, the parish seat was moved to Athens in 1846, but an 1848 fire destroyed the courthouse and all the records in it.

[7][8] Much of the area history is preserved in the Herbert S. Ford Memorial Museum, located across from the parish courthouse in Homer.

[17] With a narrow majority of African Americans in the population, Claiborne Parish in the years after the civil rights movement was primarily Democratic in political complexion.