Niblett's Bluff is the first bluff above Orange on the Louisiana side of the Sabine River, and it was the first crossing into Louisiana on the river. It was called Millspaw's Bluff, then Jericho, then Neblett's Bluff for Dr. Robert Caldwell Neblett, who moved to Louisiana in 1830, settled on the east bank about 1833, built a plantation, and left for Texas in 1840; the spelling later changed to Niblett's. By 1861 about 50 people lived here, and the bluff shipped lumber and cotton and was a stagecoach crossing on the road between Houston and Opelousas.
The settlement had a store, a post office and a school that closed about 1910, and a ferry route known as Ballew's ended at the landing. In the Civil War the Confederate army built Camp Pleasant here, the first defensive post above Orange. A military road was cut from the bluff toward Alexandria, and a 2005 marker put up by the Niblett's Bluff Confederate Historical Society begins an 18-mile route through Calcasieu Parish. The camp was never attacked, and a memorial across the road records deaths from a measles epidemic.
After the war it became a lumber camp with a railroad, a store and a hotel. Today it is a park funded by the residents of Ward 7 in Vinton, with river cabins and RV and camp sites. Gates close from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. A low earthen ridge about 100 feet long behind the church is what remains of the earthwork, and the park says it is preserving the breastworks as far as it can.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour