Artifacts from Old LSU site unearthed
- Matthew Helmer / Special to Forests & People
- 13 hours ago
- 5 min read
What in the world does archaeology have to do with Louisiana forestry, you might ask, and why would it be on the front cover of a Forestry magazine?
This is a great question, and brings about a topic that many don’t often think about when it comes to forestry — that Louisiana’s forests cover tens of thousands of archaeological sites.
On Kisatchie National Forest alone, more than 5,500 archaeological sites have been documented and many more still await discovery. Across the forest’s 605,000 acres this averages out to about one site for every 100 acres, with most sites clustered around creeks, wetlands and other water sources.
Archaeological sites are protected on federal lands, so Kisatchie is actually one of the largest archaeological reserves in the entire state. Forests contain vital evidence of Louisiana’s cultural heritage. The USDA Forest Service actively manages Kisatchie National Forest and protects the important cultural heritage across the landscape. Kisatchie is known for its beautiful, park-like longleaf pine forest which is managed through robust timber and prescribed fire programs.
Millennia of History
Kisatchie’s archaeological sites contain the material record of all of Louisiana’s forest dwellers, from the first arrival of humans at the end of the Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago up to the logging communities of the present-day. One of Kisatchie’s archaeological “crown jewels” is the Old LSU Site. The forest and Louisiana State University (LSU) held the first archaeological excavations at the site this past summer.
Most people don’t realize Louisiana’s flagship university began in Pineville more than 150 years ago. At the time, Pineville was little more than a small, wooded outpost on the Red River that provided timber and firewood for nearby Alexandria and the agricultural communities in the Red River Valley. This was an extraordinarily rich and biodiverse area.
During the first botanical survey of the state, LSU botanist Americus Featherman remarked that the soil of the Old LSU Site area “offers the richest field in the state for the collection of such plants as are generally found in sandy soils and in pine wood regions. Nature seems to be lavish in her gifts of floral adornment where she has withheld fertility from the soil. This is indeed one of the wise provisions of Divine Providence, by which the balance in the organic world is maintained, and its existence and perpetuation secured.” He collected more than 100 species of plants from the site, which are now housed in the Museum of Natural Science at LSU.
Seminary and Hospital
The school opened as the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy in 1859 as an all-boys cadet school. In one of U.S. history’s great ironies, General William Tecumseh Sherman served as the school’s first superintendent shortly before enlisting in the Union Army. It opened with 73 cadets under great fanfare, and was an opulent multi-story building that reflected the great aspirations for Louisiana at the time. That aspiration was short-lived, however, when the Civil War soon broke out and most of the faculty and students left and joined the Confederacy. Sherman left for the Union.
During the war, the school operated as a military hospital which was later ransacked by invading Union troops. It is possible that the school survived total destruction because Sherman had a connection to the area and asked for it to be spared. After the war, the school re-opened, but Sherman never returned. In another cruel bit of irony, despite surviving the war the school burned down in 1869 under mysterious circumstances, most likely from a kitchen fire.
Superintendent David Boyd relocated the school to Baton Rouge where it eventually became a land grant university to include agricultural and forestry research and mechanical studies, and the rest is history.
The Old LSU Site sat in ruins for more than 50 years, until it became part of Camp Stafford, a National Guard installation in the early 1900s. The site was then part of the state Veteran’s Affairs hospital before eventually coming under ownership of the U.S. Forest Service when the Alexandria Forestry Center was relocated here.
In the early 2000s, LSU and Kisatchie collaborated to install a walking trail and interpretive signage around the site but did not conduct any archaeological investigations. Other than the building’s foundation, it was assumed most of the site had been destroyed because of so much reuse over time.
It wasn’t until a large oak tree blew down during a storm in 2023 that it was realized just how much was still left of the site. In the root ball of that oak tree, a beautifully ornate Fleur de Lis cast iron railing was discovered, along with military uniform buttons and an array of other artifacts. This spurred our decision to excavate the site. Luckily, there was a Master’s student at LSU, Conan Mills, who was interested in investigating the site for his thesis. Together we led an archaeological field school with about 15 students.
The Old LSU Dig
The project was started by collecting Ground Penetrating Radar and LIDAR data to document buried wall foundations. This revealed that most of the footprint of the site was still buried underground in fairly good condition, in the exact U-shape shown in historical plan drawings. Targets for excavations in different parts of the site came next.
The quality of the brick was very poor, which was discovered early on, and was confirmed what was documented in the historical archives. The building required more than 1 million bricks for construction, which would have been done with slave labor. Many of the bricks were poorly fired, likely to speed up production of the massive building. It was confirmed one of the building’s towers collapsed before the school opened, and had to be completely reconstructed.
Various large iron joists and braces were found in the excavations, showing that the building was cobbled together.
One of the biggest discoveries was a massive 15-foot-wide bell cistern in the center of the building’s quadrangle. The cistern was filled in with a mix of building rubble, seminary-era artifacts and more recent early 20th century artifacts. It is believed that the cistern was filled during the Camp Stafford era, when the building ruins were most likely cleared. This allowed for the preservation of a lot of material that otherwise would have been lost.
Several more pieces of the Fleur de Lis railing were recovered, along with elaborately decorated iron pillars. Several large chunks of white marble imported from Massachusetts for the building’s steps and cornerstones were found. The largest chunk had an inscribed cross with chisel marks across the rest of the face, indicating that something was removed. Remarkably, historical documentation after the outbreak of the Civil War indicates the Seminary Board of Supervisors ordered an inscription above the building entrance be removed which read “By the Liberality of the General Government. The Union esto perpetua.” It was astounding to realize the likeliness of discovering this exact entrance stone, with an incredible story and symbol of the fracturing of the country.
Other interesting artifacts included ink wells, slate pencils, glass beakers and pipettes, weaponry and uniform buttons, all reflecting the school’s focus on academic and military development. And, just like LSU today, a whole lot of liquor bottles also were found.
If you are interested in learning more about the site, Mills will be completing his thesis this spring. The LSU Military History Museum also will feature a permanent exhibition of these discoveries, opening April 22. The site is open to the public and has a walking trail with interpretive information.
It is hoped this story will encourage people to consider the history laying underneath Louisiana’s forests, that it is best for this history to be preserved and to reach out to archaeologists if you think you have something on your forest land you’d like to learn more about. P
(Dr. Matthew Helmer is affiliate professor for the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University.)
