Red River

In 1831 Captain Henry Shreve dug a canal through the neck of Turnbull's Bend, a Mississippi loop where steamboats spent hours covering 20 miles and gained about one. The cut was overrun at the next high water and left Upper and Lower Old River. Once locals removed the Atchafalaya's Great Raft in 1839 and 1840, more water moved west. Lock and Dam 1, about eleven miles above Marksville, is the first of five locks on the Red River Waterway, and the park beside it is named for Lindy C. Boggs.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Avoyelles Parish Courthouse: Solomon Northup Marker — 11 mi
  The Marksville courthouse where Solomon Northup was freed in January 1853, with a marker and a 2026 bronze that shows him rising from the mud.
• Tunica-Biloxi Museum — 12 mi
  The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Marksville, built around the Tunica Treasure that the tribe won back in court.
• Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge — 23 mi
  A 25,000-acre bottomland refuge beside Catahoula Lake, a Ramsar wetland that is a major early-season stop for ducks on the Mississippi Flyway.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 28 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

• Spring Bayou — 9.8 mi
• Poste Des Avoyelles — 10 mi
• Moncla — 10 mi
• Marksville Mounds — 10 mi