Rapides Cemetery
cemetery in Louisiana, USA
Rapides Cemetery is a historic burial ground located in Pineville, Louisiana at the site of the colonial era Post of Rapides.
History
The area on the bluffs has been the location of European colonial activity since 1722 and remains an active cemetery.
Colonial era
The site was the location of a simple Spanish colonial military post in 1722 or 1723. It was in use as graveyard in c. 1769. The Post du Rapide was lightly manned by the French during the French colonial period when the primary activity was trade with the Native Americans. After 1762 when France ceded Louisiana to Spain a small settlement developed around the Post El Rapido. A report to the Spanish Governor O'Reilly in 1769 found 33 whites, 18 slaves, a small Native American village of 26 men and 18 women. In 1799 the settlement had grown to a population of 760 and in 1805 it became known as Pineville. The site that was to become the Rapides Cemetery was in use at that time, known simply as the public cemetery.
After the Civil War
The Rapides Parish, Louisiana courthouse records were destroyed by fire in 1864 so records of burials before the American Civil War are not extant.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7294251. Authority coordinates are 31.317, -92.442. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1722, 1723, 1769 and 1762.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rapides Cemetery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.