Plain Dealing is a town in
Bossier Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 893 in 2020.
It is part of the
Shreveport–
Bossier City
Bossier City ( ) is a city in Bossier Parish in the northwestern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana in the United States. It is the second most populous city in the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan statistical area. In 2020, it had a ...
Metropolitan Statistical Area
In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...
.
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.
In 1839, George Oglethorpe Gilmer and his son, James Blair Gilmer, bought 5,000 acres of this land—now 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.
The "Plain Dealing" name became official when the town was formally chartered on April 24, 1890.
Notable points of more recent history include the following:
* Plain Dealing recorded the state's hottest temperature ever, , on August 10, 1936 (see "Climate" section below).
* The ''Plain Dealing Post'' newspaper was established in the 1980s by publisher Danny D. Scott of nearby
Springhill.
* The Bossier Parish minimum security prison is located in Plain Dealing.
Geography
Plain Dealing is south of the
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
border and north of
Shreveport.
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of t ...
, the town has a total area of , of which , or 0.26%, is water.
Climate
Demographics
As of the
2020 United States census
The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...
, there were 893 people, 424 households, and 192 families residing in the town.
Notable people
*
William Benton Boggs (1854–1922), first mayor of Plain Dealing in 1890; member of the
Louisiana House of Representatives from 1892 to 1900, and the
Louisiana State Senate from 1908 to 1916
*
Mollie Burdett Banks Curry Gray (1862–1958), a Plain Dealing resident, was a great-great-grand-niece of
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
. When she died in 1958 in
Shreveport, she was listed as the oldest descendant of President Washington.
*
Robert Houston Curry, first husband of Mollie Gray, was from 1888 to 1892 a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for Bossier Parish.
*
John J. Doles (1895–1970), a business man and politician, member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1952 to 1956, and president of the Louisiana Bankers Association from 1956 to 1957
*
John J. Doles, Jr. (1923–2004), Plain Dealing banker and civic leader
*
Ryan Gatti
Ryan Eugene Gatti (born June 1974) is an attorney in his native Bossier City, Louisiana, who was a Republican member of the Louisiana Senate from 2016 until 2020 for District 36. Gatti served as vice-chairman of the Insurance Committee and on ...
(born 1974), state senator from Bossier City since 2016; owns a tree farm near Plain Dealing
*
Booker T (born 1965), American professional wrestler and promoter.
*
A. P. Tugwell (1889–1976), born in Plain Dealing; the longest-serving Louisiana state
treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance.
Government
The treasury ...
*
Joseph David "Joe" Waggonner, Jr. (1918–2007), a former
congressman; born in Plain Dealing and interred at Plain Dealing Cemetery.
*
W. E. "Willie" Waggonner (1905–1976), sheriff of Bossier Parish from 1948 until his death in office; brother of Joe Waggonner
Gallery
Image:Revised Plain Dealing, LA, sign IMG 5163.JPG, Plain Dealing corporate limits sign
Image:Downtown Plain Dealing, LA IMG 5164.JPG, Downtown Plain Dealing
Image:Revised gazebo pix in Plain Dealing, LA IMG 5165.JPG, Gazebo in downtown Plain Dealing
Image:First Baptist Church, Plain Dealing, LA IMG 5166.JPG, Plain Dealing Baptist Church of Plain Dealing
Image:First United Methodist Church, Plain Dealing, LA IMG 6332.jpg, First United Methodist Church of Plain Dealing
Image:Plain Dealing Cemetery IMG 1462.JPG, The Plain Dealing Cemetery contains the graves of former U.S. Representative Joe D. Waggonner and Waggonner's older brother, former Bossier Parish Sheriff Willie E. Waggonner.
References
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Towns in Louisiana
Towns in Bossier Parish, Louisiana
Towns in Shreveport – Bossier City metropolitan area
1890 establishments in Louisiana