Grant Parish, Louisiana

The Grant Parish Library is located near the courthouse.

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The Grant Parish Sheriff's Office is located behind the courthouse.

File:Reunions Nursing Home, Colfax LA IMG 2386.JPG

Colfax Reunion Nursing and Rehabilitation Home at 366 Webb Smith Drive in Colfax serves all of Grant Parish.

Grant Parish is a parish located in the North Central portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 22,169.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The parish seat is Colfax.<ref name="GR6">Template:Cite web</ref> The parish was founded in 1869 during the Reconstruction era.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Grant Parish is part of the Alexandria, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area and Red River Valley. From 1940 to 1960, the parish had a dramatic population loss, as many African Americans from the plantation areas left in the Great Migration to seek better opportunities in the North and West. Such migration continued until about 1970. One of the eleven parishes organized during Reconstruction, Grant was created from parts of Winn and Rapides parishes.

Grant Parish is the site of United States Penitentiary, Pollock.

History

Grant Parish was originally a part of the more populous Rapides Parish to the south. Prior to the American Civil War, the center of activity focused upon "Calhoun's Landing," named for the cotton and sugar planter Meredith Calhoun, a native of South Carolina. Calhoun also published the former National Democrat newspaper in what became Colfax, designated as the seat of government of the new parish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Grant was one of several new parishes created by the Reconstruction legislature in an attempt to build the Republican Party in the state. Founded in 1869, it had a slight majority of freedmen, many of whom had worked on cotton plantations in the area. It was named for U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The parish seat of Colfax was named for Grant's first vice president, Schuyler M. Colfax (whose name is pronounced COAL-facks) of Indiana. However, the town of Colfax is pronounced CAHL-facks. The parish came into existence on March 4, 1869, which also was the day of President Grant's first inauguration.<ref>Lane, Charles, The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction, 2008, page 42</ref> The parish encompassed both cotton plantations and pinewoods. It was one of several areas along the Red River that had considerable violence during Reconstruction, as whites tried to maintain social control.

The gubernatorial election of 1872 was disputed in the state, and both the Democrats and Republicans certified their slates of local officers. Two inaugurations were held. The election was finally settled in favor of the Republican candidates, but the decision was disputed in certain areas. As social tensions rose, Republican officials took their places at the courthouse in Colfax. They were defended by freedmen and state militia (mostly made up of freedmen), who feared a Democratic Party takeover of the parish. Amid widespread rumors, whites organized a militia and advanced on the courthouse on Easter Sunday, 1873. In the ensuing violence, three whites and 120-150 blacks were killed, including 50 that night who were held as prisoners. Leading late 20th-century historians renamed the Colfax Riot, the original state designation, as the Colfax Massacre. The total number of freedmen deaths were never established because some of the bodies were thrown into the river and woods.

The white militia was led by Christopher Columbus Nash, a Confederate officer who had been a prisoner of war at Johnson's Island in Ohio. It consisted of veterans from Grant and neighboring parishes. The following year, Nash gathered many of the white militia members as the basis of the first chapter of the White League. Other chapters quickly grew up across the state. The White League's organized violence in support of the Democratic Party included widespread intimidation of black voters. The League was integral to white Democrats' regaining power in the state by 1876. Soon after, they effectively disfranchised most blacks, a situation that persisted until after federal enforcement of Civil Rights-era legislation of the mid-1960s.

Nativity scene

In December 2016, a courthouse nativity scene in Colfax drew a complaint from the New Orleans chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In a letter to the Grant Parish Police Jury, the ACLU said that officials must include secular symbols of the Christmas holiday if a nativity scene is placed alone on public property. District Attorney Jay Lemoine objected to the ACLU challenge in a statement to Alexandria Town Talk: "There have been various holiday displays presented both inside and outside the courthouse over many years. This year, as in years past, they include both secular and non-secular symbols. It is unfortunate that some are offended by these displays during this holiday season, as that was not the intent."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert (3.3%) is water.<ref name="GR1">Template:Cite web</ref>

Major highways

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Adjacent parishes

National protected area

Kisatchie National Forest (part)

Fossil site

The most famous fossil sites within Louisiana are Creola Bluff at Montgomery Landing Site in the parish.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> The Montgomery Landing Site was a Template:Convert long and Template:Convert high bluff that was the cutbank on the east side of the Red River. It exposed the top of the Cockfield Formation, the Moodys Branch Formation, and Tullos Member of the Yazoo Clay. In 1979, it was the site of a large whale skeleton discovery.<ref name=":0" />

Demographics

Template:US Census population

2020 census

Grant Parish racial composition<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Race	Number	Percentage
White (non-Hispanic)	16,678	75.23%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic)	3,060	13.8%
Native American	193	0.87%
Asian	67	0.3%
Pacific Islander	6	0.03%
Other/Mixed	832	3.75%
Hispanic or Latino	1,333	6.01%

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 22,169 people, 6,989 households, and 4,651 families residing in the parish.

2000 census

As of the census<ref name="GR2">Template:Cite web</ref> of 2000, there were 18,698 people, 7,073 households, and 5,276 families residing in the parish. The population density was Template:Convert. There were 8,531 housing units at an average density of Template:Convert. The racial makeup of the parish was 85.43% White, 11.88% Black or African American, 0.89% Native American, 0.14% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.36% from other races, and 1.28% from two or more races. 1.14% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The decreases in population from 1910 to 1920, and from 1940 to 1960, were chiefly caused by different phases of the Great Migration, as African Americans left segregation and oppression of the South to seek better opportunities in the North, during the first phase, and in the West, especially California's defense industry, in the second phase. Tens of thousands of migrants left Louisiana during times of agricultural difficulties and the collapse of agricultural labor after mechanization.<ref>"African American Migration Experience: The Second Great Migration", New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Template:Webarchive, accessed April 24, 2008</ref>

In 2000, there were 7,073 households, out of which 36.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.20% were married couples living together, 12.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.40% were non-families. 22.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.10% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.06.

In the parish the population was spread out, with 28.30% under the age of 18, 7.90% from 18 to 24, 28.10% from 25 to 44, 23.00% from 45 to 64, and 12.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 96.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.00 males.

The median income for a household in the parish was $29,622, and the median income for a family was $34,878. Males had a median income of $31,235 versus $20,470 for females. The per capita income for the parish was $14,410. About 16.90% of families and 21.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 27.30% of those under age 18 and 16.20% of those age 65 or over.

Government and infrastructure

The Federal Bureau of Prisons U.S. Penitentiary, Pollock is located in an unincorporated area in the parish, near Pollock.<ref name="USPPol">"USP Pollock." Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved on May 29, 2010.</ref><ref>"USP Pollock Contact Information Template:Webarchive." Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved on May 29, 2010.</ref>

Politics

Today Grant Parish is majority white and votes strongly Republican. Mitt Romney polled 7,082 votes (81.7 percent) in his 2012 race against the Democrat U.S. President Barack H. Obama, who trailed with 1,422 votes (16.4 percent).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2008, U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona swept the parish, with 6,907 votes (80.7 percent) to Obama's 1,474 (17.2 percent).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In every election since then, the Republican candidate has broken the record for the strongest performance by a candidate from that party in Parish history.

In 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush carried Grant Parish but was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection. He polled 3,214 votes (40.8 percent) to Democratic Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas's 3,122 (39.6 percent). This son of the South carried numerous other Republican-leaning jurisdictions. Ross Perot, who later founded the Reform Party, polled 1,174 (14.9 percent).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1996, Republican Robert J. Dole narrowly won in Grant Parish over U.S. President Bill Clinton, a son of the South, with 3,117 votes (42.8 percent) to 2,980 (40.9 percent). Ross Perot polled another 1,055 (14.5 percent).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The last Democrat to win in Grant Parish at the presidential level was former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia in his 1976 defeat of U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., who had Bob Dole as his vice-presidential partner.<ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, Presidential election returns, November 2, 1976</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Education

Public schools in Grant Parish are operated by the Grant Parish School Board.

National Guard

A Company 199TH FSB (Forward Support Battalion) resides in Colfax, Louisiana. This unit deployed twice to Iraq as part of the 256TH IBCT in 2004-5 and 2010.

Communities

Towns

Colfax (parish seat and largest municipality)
Montgomery
Pollock

Villages

Unincorporated areas

Census-designated places

Other communities

Prison

Name	Address	Zip	Aged
Grant Parish Detention Center	Richardson Drive, Colfax, Louisiana	71417	18+

Notable people

W. K. Brown, state representative from Grant Parish from 1960 to 1972
Joe T. Cawthorn (1911-1967), lawyer, businessman, and politician affiliated with the Long faction, born in Selma in Grant Parish, resided in Mansfield in DeSoto Parish<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Billy Ray Chandler, state representative from Grant Parish, 2006-2012
Ed Head (1918–1980), Major League Baseball player who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Russ Springer, Major League baseball player

References

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