Waterloo is the name of a former town at the upriver juncture of the False River oxbow on the west bank of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

in Pointe Coupee Parish,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

, United States. Founded ''circa'' 1820, the community grew as a bustling export center for cotton and sugar cane produced in Pointe Coupee Parish.

History

For protection against the frequent floods of the Mississippi River, Waterloo was surrounded by levees, the large state-maintained levee in the rear and a small levee maintained by the community itself at the river's edge. Both of these levees broke during the flood of 1884, seriously damaging Waterloo and the smaller communities of

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek � ...

and Cook's Landing immediately downriver. What the river did not destroy, arsonists did during the mid-1890s and there is nothing left to indicate that the town once existed. Most of the families who lived at Waterloo moved to the parish seat of

New Roads New Roads (historically french: Poste-de-Pointe-Coupée) is a city in and the parish seat of Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, United States. The center of population of Louisiana was located in New Roads in 2000. The population was 4,831 at the ...

, just a few miles to the west on False River. The names Waterloo, Anchor, and Cook's Landing are perpetuated, however, in the street names of nearby subdivisions of new homes developed between 1968 and 2007. It is also not uncommon for residents of these subdivisions to uncover remnants of the communities while performing any sort of excavation upon their properties. There are 144 households, in which there is an estimated population of 332. The racial makeup of the neighborhood is 93.05% White non-Hispanic, 6.25% African American, and 0.6% Latino. The median income is estimated at $71,232. The median house age is 19 years.

External links

* http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8883528 Ghost towns in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana Louisiana populated places on the Mississippi River {{US-ghost-town-stub