Louisiana's Oldest City — Natchitoches (founded 1714) is older than New Orleans, its Front Street is the most charming Christmas lighting display in America, Steel Magnolias was filmed on Cane River, and the Natchitoches meat pie has been sold from the same recipe for 300 years
Natchitoches (pronounced NAK-uh-tush) is the oldest permanent European settlement in Louisiana — founded in 1714 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville's cousin Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as a French trading post on the Cane River, four years before New Orleans. The city's Front Street along Cane River Lake (a former channel of the Red River) is lined with 19th-century Creole townhouses fronted with wrought-iron balconies — an architectural district that served as the primary filming location for the 1989 film Steel Magnolias (Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Julia Roberts). The Natchitoches Chri…
Natchitoches was the western frontier outpost of French Louisiana — established by the French Crown specifically to counter Spanish expansion from Texas (the Spanish established the competing Presidio Los Adaes, just 20 km west, at the same time). The city's position between French and Spanish colonial claims made it a centre of contraband trade and diplomatic intrigue throughout the 18th century. After the Louisiana Purchase (1803), Natchitoches became the key American gateway to Spanish Texas — it was here that Zebulon Pike was provisioned before his famous 1806 expedition into Spanish terr…