SHREVEPORT, La. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – For generations, rural residents in Northwest Louisiana have claimed that during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 the Red River flowed backward, flooded Native American villages, and created at least one lake in the area. But is there proof to back up ArkLaTex folklore?
To find out, we must look at evidence from the early 1800s and explore the possibilities.
What was the New Madrid earthquake?
New Madrid (Nuevo Madrid) in modern-day Missouri was named after the capital of Spain and first settled by Spanish explorers in 1789 . But after the Louisiana Purchase, the settlement became the property of the United States.
It was two o’clock in the morning on Dec. 16, 1811, less than a week before Christmas, and many homesteaders new to the frontier in the Louisiana Purchase were fast asleep in the new American frontier.
“They were suddenly awakened, as if with the Trump of God; for the earth reeled to and fro like a drunken man. Our houses seemed to jump and skip; the cattle and the other beasts ran and roared; the birds on their roosts screamed and fell to the ground; the trees trembled, as with fear, clasping each other in the arms of their long branches as if trying to lean on each other for help,” wrote Reverend William Stevenson, a circuit-riding Methodist minister who lived in Missouri during the quakes and later moved to Claiborne Parish, Louisiana.