The Early Days at the Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Commemorative Area

In 1981, I was hired to be the manager of Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Commemorative Area, a new state park facility located in Natchitoches. The park is a reproduction of a French colonial fort that was built at Natchitoches to promote trade with local Indians and to protect Louisiana’s western frontier against the Spanish in Texas.

At the time, State Parks wanted to establish a living history program to show visitors what life was like at a French colonial outpost. Authentic-looking French military uniforms and civilian attire were made to wear for demonstrations, and trade goods and miscellaneous tools and furs were acquired to put in the buildings.

My favorite items were four flintlock muskets and two pistols that master gunsmith James Flynn of Alexandria made for us. The muskets were .62 caliber (20 gauge) smoothbores and we used them to give firing demonstrations for tourists. I am an avid hunter, so on the pretense of needing to be familiar with them, I sometimes took one hunting. I never bagged a deer with the musket but it was cool to hunt with.

I was lucky to have two outstanding men working with me at the fort. Raine Barnes, my curator, was largely responsible for setting up the fort each day and giving tours and living history demonstrations. Waylon Roark, the park attendant, was responsible for maintaining the grounds and helping out with tours. Both did an excellent job.

During the summer months, I was also able to hire about a half dozen college students to help out, as well.

Wick Pickett, my district manager, was based at the Lake Bistineau State Park. I liked Wick because he didn’t try to micro-manage me, was pretty laid back and forgiving when I goofed up. I really appreciated him after what could have been a catastrophic incident.

The commandant’s house sits in the middle of the fort and has a large fireplace and walls of bousillage (an adobe-like mixture of mud, deer hair, and moss). On cold days, we kept a fire going in the fireplace to warm up between tours.

One afternoon, I doused the fire with a garden hose, stirred it around like a good Boy Scout, and doused it again to make sure it was out. The next morning when I opened the fort’s gate, I noticed smoke coming from the chimney and thought some embers were still smoking. When I opened the door, however, I was shocked to see fire licking up the side of a large wooden beam encasing the fireplace. Apparently, I had not doused the fire well enough and hot coals were left touching the beam.

I quickly put the fire out but was left a little weak in the knees when I realized the whole fort could have burned down. Then I had to inform Wick. I was expecting a chewing out, if not being fired outright, but he took it in stride. Those things will happen, he said, but please be more careful in the future.

Certain State Park employees had to be commissioned law enforcement officers so they could carry a weapon in case unruly visitors became dangerous. Therefore, Raine and I were sent to the Louisiana State Police Academy in Baton Rouge for a six-week basic police officer course.

I enjoyed the training and kept my service revolver in the truck, but the only time I ever carried it on the grounds was when I had to deal with some nighttime trespassers.

Some mornings after opening up, we noticed that the mattresses in the barracks had been rearranged during the night. It didn’t take much investigative training to realize that young couples were sneaking in and enjoying a late-night rendezvous.

To catch the interlopers, I sometimes grabbed my badge, pistol, and flashlight and crept into the fort late at night. It was a game of cat and mouse, but I never found anyone, and the trespassing eventually stopped.

After a lot of work, we developed a popular living history program where we dressed in period costumes, gave musket firing demonstrations, used deer brains to tan deer hides and sometimes hosted colonial reenactors and Native American basket weavers.

Whenever we hosted special events, Raine and I did everything possible to publicize them, even to the point of walking around town in our colonial clothing, with muskets slung over our shoulders, to hand out fliers. I always made sure to call the police department beforehand so they wouldn’t be surprised if someone reported two armed Frenchmen walking along Front Street.

To add more color to the fort, Raine planted a garden, and I convinced Wick to let us get two pigs and some chickens. My daughter, Laura, was not much more than a toddler at the time, but she still remembers feeding pecans to the pigs and shooing the chickens off their nests to collect eggs.

I enjoyed my three years at the fort and take pride in having helped to establish the popular historic site that continues to flourish.      

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. An autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, costs $25. Contact him at tljones505@gmail.com