Some 150 years ago, Chadwater's 65 acres were dominated by coastal prairie, teeming with hundreds of species of native grasses and wildflowers. The prairie was also dotted with numerous low spots — marais or platains, to French-speaking settlers — that supported lagoons and pockets of freshwater marshes.

Extending toward the Gulf before blending into tidal marshlands, the landscape was a product of differential erosion created by the receding waters of the late-Pleistocene Gulf of Mexico, which inundated much of southern Louisiana as late as 100,000 years ago.

Also visually impressive are the “pine islands” that dot the otherwise grassy, wide-open range. Before the arrival area of French, Spanish, and African settlers, these small, pine woodlots rose along the floodplain edges of bayous that ran through what are now Calcasieu and Jeff Davis parishes. These pre-settlement bits of pine forest are thought to be remnants of the vast pineland forests that frame the northern boundary of Southwest Louisiana’s prairie district, beginning just north of Interstate 10.

Seeing the value of these naturally occurring pine woodlots as windbreaks and winter shelter for cattle, the U.S. Soil and Water Conservation Service — now the Natural Resource Conservation Service — began offering native loblolly pine seedlings to local landowners to create more pine woodlots. By the mid-20th century, numerous “pine islands” were created on local farms and ranches. These woodlots would also serve as an additional source of timber income.

Chadwater’s northern boundary is framed by Bayou Black and its attendant riparian forest — densely populated by oaks, hawthorns, hollies, Chickasaw rose, black cherry, and many other trees and shrubs. These “gallery forests” of hardwood-dominated woodlands had long intermingled with cypress/tupelo swamps within the floodplains of the bayous which course through the prairie district.

However, precious little of the original 2.2 million acres of Southwest Louisiana’s coastal prairie remains today. Most has been converted to pastures and agricultural fields.

It’s often said that you can’t turn back the hands of time, but in the natural world, that’s not entirely true. Prairie, wetland, and forest habitats can be restored — and that’s exactly what we're doing at Chadwater. As we preserve the land and water here, we pay respect to our area’s original gifts — and restore an environment of natural beauty for a new generation to celebrate.