The Estherwood area had two earlier names, Tortue, after the Indian chief, and Coulée Trief or Trive.

The Coulée Trief name involves Jean-Baptiste Trief, a mysterious person believed to have been one of Jean Lafitte's pirates, who built a cabin on the coulee, about 6 miles (10 km) west of Crowley, Louisiana, about 1816.

He was described as a "tall, dark, sinister-looking" man who wore large earrings like pirates once did.

[3] Jacob Kollitz and A. D. LeBlanc established stores near the Trief cabin in the early 1890s, and a little settlement began to grow around them.

A chapel was finished there in 1910 and ministered as a mission of St. John the Evangelist Church in Mermentau.

[5] According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 1.9 square miles (4.8 km2), all land.