The area grew quickly, as did transportation through it. Stockwell started selling lots in their newly formed Bossier City on October 5, 1883. Stockwell, felt the area would prosper and began promoting the idea of a riverfront city. The plantation was reached from the west, across the Red River by means of a ferryboat named the 'Sterling White.'Īnna B., granddaughter of James and Mary, together with her husband J. Some of these settlers stayed, attracted by the fertile soil and lush river valley.īy 1882, the plantation was at the center of the convergence of the infamous Shed Road, The Red River steamboat waterway and the soon to arrive 'Iron Horse' railroad. By 1850, over 200 wagons a week were passing through Bossier City. Many, many early settlers passed through the region on their way to the Wild West. The confederate Fort Smith stood near what is now Bossier High School and protected the area from an eastern invasion. During the war, the riverfront was protected from Union invasion by the artillery embankments of Battery's Price, Walker and Ewell. During the Civil War, several companies of local confederate soldiers left Cane's Landing aboard steamboats for the distant battlefields.