Baton Rouge’s history begins in the mist of time and the dynamic flow of the Mississippi River. Ancient Indian mounds can be found throughout the region. Two mounds on the Louisiana State University main campus functioned as ceremonial centers. Radiocarbon dating shows mound builders came to the area more than 5,000 years ago. By the 1500s England, Spain, and France were becoming interested in colonizing the Mississippi River. Following the death of Hernando de Soto in 1542, his followers would have passed the site on their way to the Gulf of Mexico, but they didn’t claim the land for their king. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, claimed Louisiana for Louis XIV, King of France.
In 1698 a French-Canadian, Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, was commissioned by the French king to found a colony in Louisiana. Traveling in two long boats to explore the Mississippi River, Iberville and his men first saw the bluffs of Baton Rouge on March 17, 1699. In her History of Baton Rouge 1699–1812, Rose Meyers writes that the ship’s daily log stated that the explorers landed near a small stream at three o’clock, and they found several cabins covered with palmetto leaves and a tall reddened pole on which there were fish heads. Members of the Houma tribe lived to the north of the red stick and Bayagoulas to the south. The explorers named the site Baton Rouge (Red Stick).
Although it is easy to find the date for the discovery of Baton Rouge, there is little information for the exact date of a settlement. It is alleged that the French constructed a fort in 1719, but it’s doubtful the fort ever existed.