Caspiana Plantation Store is an American historic building and a former

plantation store A company store is a retail store selling a limited range of food, clothing and daily necessities to employees of a company. It is typical of a company town in a remote area where virtually everyone is employed by one firm, such as a coal mine. In ...

built in 1906, located at 1300 Texas Street in Natchitoches,

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. The store served as part of the

crop-lien system The crop-lien system was a credit system that became widely used by cotton farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1940s. History Sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who did not own the land they worked, obtained supplie ...

, during the time of

sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

which impacted the lives of many

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

workers. It is listed as a

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since June 5, 1992 for its agricultural history and significance.

History

The Caspiana Plantation Store was part of the Caspiana Plantation, a Reconstruction-era

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

plantation built by William Joseph Hutchinson (1839–1913) and originally located in the unincorporated community of Caspiana in

Caddo Parish Caddo Parish () () is a parish located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the parish had a population of 237,848. The parish seat and largest city is Shreveport, which developed al ...

. The main house at the Caspiana Plantation is named Caspiana House, and is now part of the

Pioneer Heritage Center Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

Louisiana State University Shreveport Louisiana State University Shreveport (LSU Shreveport or LSUS) is a public university in Shreveport, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System. Initially, a two-year college, LSUS has expanded into a university with 25 u ...

. The Caspiana Plantation Store allowed local sharecrop farmers to purchase seeds and equipment by using their future crop as collateral, which often trapped people in debt. This store was most active from 1906 until 1942. At one time there were hundreds of these plantation stores in the state, primarily found on the grounds of large plantations. In 1991, the plantation store was moved to the city of Natchitoches after the sale of the property. The process of moving the building required it to be cut in half however despite the changes, it maintained much of its original features and is a rare example of plantation store architecture and history.

History

See also

References

Further reading