Kolin Czech Colony

The Czech colonies came with hard terms. The Louisiana Investment Securities Company bought cutover land that lumber companies were willing to unload at 50 cents an acre and resold it to settlers for $15 to $18. The soil northeast of the Red River was less fertile than the Bayou Rapides land, so farming took more work. The Bohemian Colonization Club reported suitable land in 1912 after a year of searching, and its backers hoped to keep Czechs together to preserve their language and culture. Colonization ran from about 1914 into the late 1920s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 8.0 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
• Louisiana Maneuvers and Military Museum — 8.2 mi
  A National Guard museum in a replica WWII barracks at Camp Beauregard, built around the huge 1940-41 war games in Central Louisiana. Free.
• Forts Randolph and Buhlow State Historic Site — 8.5 mi
  Two Confederate earthen forts on the Red River at Pineville, built with enslaved labor and never attacked, beside the remains of Bailey's Dam.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 9.0 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.

More markers nearby

• Libuse Czech Colony — 5.2 mi
• Louisiana College — 7.4 mi
• Alexandria National Cemetery — 7.6 mi
• Jefferson Highway — 7.7 mi