Dorcheat Bayou
Dorcheat Bayou, also known as Bayou Dorcheat, formerly Bayou Dauchite, is a 115-mile-long (185 km) stream in the US that extends from Nevada County in southwestern Arkansas through Columbia County and into Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana before emptying into Lake Bistineau east of the village of Doyline. To its south, Lake Bistineau joins Loggy Bayou to form a continuous passage of water into the Red River. Sometimes called the "heart of Webster Parish", Dorcheat is known for its "unending bounty of sights and sound" of nature.
In the 19th century, Dorcheat was navigable for three to six months per year as far as Minden, the seat of Webster Parish. Wharves and warehouses were built along the bayou, as steamboats brought supplies to the outlying areas and then returned with mainly cotton to the large market available in New Orleans. The land along the bayou was settled by the Caddo Indians. The names "Dorcheat" and "Bistineau" come from the Caddo and mean "people" and "big broth", respectively, the latter a reference to floating plant debris still found in the lake. In 1835, the Caddo signed a treaty with the United States government and left the Dorcheat country. A few white traders, trappers, and hunters had arrived in the area even before the Indians left. The early settlers used the Dorcheat because of log jams on the Red River, which were later eliminated by Captain Henry Miller Shreve, for whom Shreveport is named.
Isaac Alden, who arrived from New Orleans prior to the War of 1812, was one of the first white settlers in the Dorcheat country. A decade later, John Murrell arrived from Tennessee. Newett Drew, a native of Virginia and an ancestor of Judges Richard Maxwell Drew, Richard Cleveland Drew, Harmon Caldwell Drew, R. Harmon Drew, Sr., and current Circuit Judge Harmon Drew, Jr., constructed a sawmill and gristmill at Dorcheat in 1821, from which appeared the settlement of the defunct Overton in south Webster Parish. The settlers were dependent on the connection with the Red River as a tributary of the Mississippi.
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