The Old Spanish Trail wandered north and south of what is now U.S. Highway 90, in large part because of the unstable roadbed.

The chief means of outside travel in the parish relied on riverboats plying the Sabine and Calcasieu rivers.

River travel made Lake Charles possible, just as mining for sulfur led to the founding of Sulphur.

Jean Baptise Granger settled acreage between what is now Vinton and Big Woods about 1827, one of the first pioneers of the area.

The area had few settlers because France, New Spain, and Mexico disputed the western boundary of Louisiana for many years.

Confederate soldiers in 1863 cut a military road extending from Niblett's Bluff on the Sabine River to Alexandria.

The first, which had the greatest material impact on the entire community, was the effort by Charles Morgan's railroad companies to construct a railroad from Morgan City, Louisiana, to Orange, Texas — filling a gap that would enable direct rail travel between New Orleans and Houston.

The part of Louisiana that included Calcasieu Parish was home to the finest longleaf pine in the world.

Precisely what brought him to Louisiana is unclear, but he certainly had a keen interest in agriculture, especially the improvement of farming methods.

The records nonetheless show that the Southern Real Estate and Guaranty Company had bought all the land tracts by April 1889.

The Horridge, Stevenson, Eddie, Ferguson, Stockwell, Morgan, Nelson, Fairchild, Banker, Hall, and Haskill families were Iowa transplants.

Shortly after construction of the first homes came a sawmill, the Methodist Church, and the first public school building.

In Vinton, the blizzard crippled the new sheep industry, and the farmers salvaged what they could by shaving wool from the dead flocks.

[6] U.S. Route 90 passes through the center of town, and Interstate 10 runs along the southern edge, with access from exits 7 and 8.