Editing Plain Dealing, Louisiana (section)

==History==
Prior to 1839, the United States government forcibly removed the [[Caddo]] Nation of Native Americans—longtime local inhabitants who had first settled the area over 1,000 years before Europeans' 16th-century arrival in mainland North America—from the area of Northern Louisiana that included the parcel that would later become the town of Plain Dealing.<ref name="shreveporttimes1">{{cite web|author=James A. Marples |url=http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/opinion/guest-columnists/2015/04/01/finding-real-deal-plain-dealing/70690608/ |title=Finding 'real deal' in Plain Dealing |website=Shreveporttimes.com |date=March 31, 2015 |access-date=February 6, 2016}}</ref>

In 1839, George Oglethorpe Gilmer and his son, James Blair Gilmer, bought 5,000 acres of this land—then described as a "vast, unsettled wilderness"—from the United States government, calling a portion of this acreage "Plain Dealing" after the family's Virginia plantation.<ref name="shreveporttimes1"/><ref name="geocities.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/heartland/plains/2157/PDHistory.html |title=MY HOMETOWN : PLAIN DEALING, LOUISIANA |website=Webcitation.org |access-date=February 6, 2016 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010803085252/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/2157/PDHistory.html |archive-date=August 3, 2001 }}</ref>  The "Plain Dealing" name became official when the town was formally chartered on April 24, 1890.<ref name="shreveporttimes1"/>

On March 26, 1893, during an evening school dance at [[Plain Dealing Middle/High School|Plain Dealing High School]], a fight broke out. Two students were shot and killed immediately, two more were fatally wounded, and the high school's Professor Johnson was wounded in the arm.<ref>{{cite news |url = http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18930327.2.11 |title = Shot to Death at a Dance |work = [[San Francisco Call|The Morning Call]], Volume 73, Number 117 (San Francisco, California) |date = March 27, 1893 |page = 1 |url-status=live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160322235107/http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18930327.2.11 |archive-date = March 22, 2016 |df = mdy-all }}</ref>