Where We Practice Law: The History of Alexandria Louisiana

Alexandria, Louisiana is the parish seat of Rapides Parish, on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 46,342 people.

Alexandria, Louisiana was named in honor of Alexander Fulton, on whose grant from Spain the first settlement was made in 1785; it was first incorporated as a town in 1818 and received a city charter in 1882. In the spring of 1863 a Union fleet under Admiral David D. Porter, operating on the Red River, co-operated with land forces under General N. P. Banks in pushing the Confederates westward. Alexandria was occupied on the 7th of May 1863, but the troops were soon withdrawn for the Port Hudson attack. On the 19th of March 1864 it was again occupied by the Union forces, who made it the point of concentration for another land and naval expedition against E. Kirby Smith and Shreveport. After the check of this expedition and its abandonment, Alexandria was again vacated on the 12th-13th of May, when the city was almost entirely burned. The Union gunboats, which had passed up the river toward Shreveport at high water, were caught in its decline above the falls at Alexandria, but they were saved by a splendid piece of engineering (a dam at the falls), constructed by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey (1827-1867), who for this service received the thanks of Congress and the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers.