History 18th and 19th centuries Early historical events, settlement and incorporation While several American Indian tribes are known to have lived in the area occupied by present-day Lake Charles, the first European colonizers arrived in the 1760s. In 1781 Martin LeBleu and his wife, Dela Marion, of Bordeaux, France were the first recorded Europeans to colonize the area now known as the LeBleu Settlement. Charles Sallier, one of the first colonizers, married LeBleu's daughter, Catherine LeBleu; the Salliers built their home on the beach in what is current-day Lake Charles. The area on the east side of the Calcasieu River was defined as the southern part of the "Neutral Ground" until ratification of the Adams-Onís Treaty that was ratified in 1821. The infamous pirate, Jean Lafitte, once delivered stolen slaves and contraband to James Bowie and other enslavers in the area. By 1860 the area become known as Charles Town in Sallier's honor. The Rio Hondo, which flowed through Lake Charles, was later called Quelqueshue, a Native American term meaning "Crying Eagle". Transliterated through French, this became the name of Calcasieu Parish. On March 7, 1861, Lake Charles was officially incorporated as the town of Charleston, Louisiana. Industrial growth and the Civil War The city's growth was fairly slow until Captain Daniel Goos, a Frisian by birth, came to the city in 1855. Goos established a lumber mill and schooner dock, in what became known as Goosport. He promoted a profitable trade with Texan and Mexican ports by sending his schooner downriver into the Gulf of Mexico. Until the arrival of Goos, a man named Jacob Ryan dominated the lumber industry. Between 1817 and 1855, timber sales from longleaf pine and bald cypress remained the city's primary source of economic revenue. Jacob Ryan convinced the state government to move the parish seat to Lake Charles from its former location at Marion, a settlement about eight miles (13 km) upriver. Later that year, Ryan and Samuel Kirby transferred the parish courthouse and jail by barge to the then-named Charleston. Six years after the city was incorporated, dissatisfaction over the name Charleston arose; on March 16, 1867, Charleston, Louisiana, was renamed and incorporated as the town of Lake Charles. By the time of the U.S. Civil War, many Americans from the North, along with a large influx of continental Europeans and Jews, had come to settle the area. Attitudes toward slavery in