LAKE CHARLES

city, seat (1852) of Calcasieu parish, southwestern Louisiana, U.S., on the Calcasieu River about 70 miles (113 km) west of Lafayette. Adjacent to the town of Sulphur, it is a port of entry on a 34-mile (55-km) deepwater channel (completed 1926) and is linked to the Gulf of Mexico via the 20-mile- (32 km-) long Calcasieu Lake. Initially a port for pirates, especially Jean Laffite, the site was first settled about 1781 and named for Charles Sallier, an early lakeside settler. In the 1880s it was promoted as a base for exploring the heavily timbered pinelands to the north and west. The advent of railroads stimulated the timber industry and brought grain farmers from the Midwest, who developed nearby what is now the principal rice-growing area of the United States. Exploitation of local mineral depositssulfur, petroleum, and natural gashas made Lake Charles one of the nation's leading petrochemical production centres. Fur-bearing animals are trapped in the city's coastal marshes, and there is offshore oil drilling. McNeese State University was established (1939) in the city, and Sam Houston Jones State Park is 12 miles (19 km) to the north. Inc. town, 1867; city, 1904. Pop. (1990) city, 70,580; Lake Charles MSA, 168,134; (1998 est.) city, 70,766; (1996 est.) Lake Charles MSA, 178,881.