LAKE CHARLES 



3301 



LAKE OF THE WOODS 



LAKE CHARLES, LA., the parish seat of 

 Calcasieu Parish, is a city in the southwestern 

 corner of the state, forty miles from the Texas 

 state line and thirty miles from the Gulf of 

 Mexico. New Orleans is 218 miles east, and 

 Houston is 160 miles west and south. Lake 

 Charles is one of the most attractive cities in 

 the state and is a popular winter resort; it is 

 situated on a lake of the same name, and on 

 the Calcasieu River. By way of the Inter- 

 coastal Canal, the city has deep-water communi- 

 cation, and a project is under way to deepen 

 the river, making it navigable through the 

 lake to the Gulf of Mexico. It is served by 

 the Southern Pacific, the Kansas City & 

 Southern, the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain & 

 Southern, and the Lake Charles & Northern 

 railroads. The area is four and a half square 

 miles. The population in 1910 was 11,449; in 

 1916 it was 14,447 (Federal estimate). 



A Federal building, completed in 1912 at a 

 cost of $200,000, the parish courthouse, which 

 cost $75,000, the city hall, Masonic Temple, 

 the Roman Catholic church and" convent, Yacht 

 and Country Club, Carnegie Library and a 

 private sanitarium are prominent buildings. 



North of the city are large forests of valu- 

 able timber, long-leaf pine, oak, ash, magnolia, 

 cypress and other varieties. ' Ten miles west 

 are extensive sulphur mines, which, with the 

 sulphur mines of Sicily, produce the greater 

 part of the world's supply of that commodity. 

 The surrounding country is the largest rice- 

 producirig section in the United States. 

 Oranges, grapefruit and all kinds of garden 

 vegetables arc sent to city markets. The indus- 

 trial enterprises of the city, whose aggregate 

 weekly pay roll is $200,000, include eight huge 

 saw mills, rice mills, fence factories, brick 

 plants, a shipbuilding plant and an ice factory. 



Lake Charles was settled about 1852, and in 

 1857 was incorporated under the name Charles- 

 ton. Under the name of Lake Charles it was 

 again incorporated in 1867 and chartered as a 

 city in 1886. The commission form of govern- 

 ment was adopted in 1913, providing for three 

 commissioners. H.B.B. 



LAKE DWELLINGS, habitations placed on 

 platforms supported by piles or other founda- 

 tions, within the margins of lakes or creeks at 

 some distance from the shore. The name is 

 generally applied to the prehistoric dwellings of 

 which numerous remains have been found in 

 the lakes of Switzerland and other parts of 

 Southern Europe. These remains first became 

 known to archaeologists in 1853 and 1854, when 



the discoveries were made in a lake near Zurich, 

 although mention of a lake-dwelling commu- 

 nity in Macedonia occurs in the writings of 

 Herodotus, a historian of the fourth cen- 

 tury B. c. 



Discoveries led to the belief that some of 

 these curious villages were constructed during 

 the Stone Age (which see) ; that others were 

 built after iron came into general use, and that 

 about 4,000 years must have elapsed between 

 the building of the first and the last of those 

 now unearthed. Remains of various grains and 

 some fruits, as well as bits of pottery, have 

 been found. In Scotland and Ireland, where 

 such communities also were numerous, they 

 are known as Crannogs, from the Celtic word 

 crann, meaning a tree. The latter, however, 

 were not constructed like the Swiss pile vil- 

 lages, but were generally artificial islets formed 

 of brushwood, stones and earth and steadied 

 by piles driven through and around the mass. 



The first traces in North America of any- 

 thing resembling the lake dwellings of Europe 

 are at the mouth of Naaman's Creek, a tribu- 

 tary of the Delaware. The custom of living 

 in wooden houses erected on piles over the 

 waters of a lake or inlet of the sea is still 

 practiced by barbarous tribes in the Malayan 

 Archipelago, New Guinea, Venezuela and in 

 Central Africa; in fact, the name Venezuela 

 (little Venice) was given because of the preva- 

 lence of these pile-dwellings along its shores. 



LAKE OF THE WOODS, a body of water 

 lying on the boundary between the United 

 States and Canada. The greater part of its 

 surface, which is estimated at 2,000 square 

 miles, lies in Western Ontario; about one- 

 quarter is in Minnesota, and sixty square miles, 

 comprising two small bays, are in Manitoba. 

 The lake is about sixty-five miles long, from 

 ten to fifty miles wide, and about 300 miles 

 in circumference. It is famous in history as 

 the location of some of the first trading posts 

 in the West, and also as an important factor 

 in several boundary disputes between the 

 United States and Great Britain. According to 

 the treaty which ended the Revolutionary War 

 the boundaiy was to run from the northwest 

 angle of the lake "on a due course west to the 

 river Mississippi." The later discovery of the 

 Mississippi's source 100 miles south was natur- 

 ally followed by disputes, but the present 

 boundary was fixed by the Convention of Lon- 

 don in 1818. 



The hillj r shores and the dozens of island.- 

 are covered with the forests which have given 



