Natchitoches

City, seat (1807) of Natchitoches parish, west-central Louisiana, U.S., on Cane River Lake, 68 miles (109 km) southeast of Shreveport. The oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory, it was founded about 1714 as Fort St. Jean Baptiste by the French-Canadian explorer and soldier Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis to forestall Spanish occupation of the area and to set up a