Ouachita River Cottonport Steamboat Strongbox — Ouachita Parish

West Monroe was originally laid out as Byron in 1837, replatted as Cotton Port in 1854, and boomed after the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railway bridged the Ouachita River. The Cottonport Historic District preserves Trenton Street riverfront commerce. Ouachita Parish History ties W.R. Mitchell — original owner of a circa-Cottonport building on Trenton Street — to the second-oldest structure in the river port. Steamboat-landing folklore imagines strongboxes buried when floods shifted landings or when rails replaced river freight. Monroe tradition also credits its city name to the steamboat Texarkana / James Monroe era on the Ouachita. Coordinates mark Trenton Street at the Cottonport river landing opposite downtown Monroe.