Mossville, LA

Mossville was founded by Jack Moss, an ex-slave, beginning in 1790. This was more than fifty years before the creation of Imperial Calcasieu Parish. Over the years the hamlet grew to more than 600 residents but was never incorporated. The main roads are the Old Spanish Trail (East Burton Street), Prater Road, and extends west to the Sulphur city limits and Evergreen Road.

The town was settled by former enslaved Africans who were granted the land through a "fee-simple title acquired by squatters rights." In this manner, anyone who agreed to improve the property while residing for a specified number of years could attain ownership.

After the Civil War, these individuals mostly from nearby farms, settled on the land and began growing crops and raising cattle.

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The area remained rural until the early 1900s, when the Locke-Moore Company built a sawmill. Lumbering became the major industry and was later joined by sugar refinement.

The greatest period of growth occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, when petrochemical and industrial plants moved into the area. Today, these plants remain the primary source of employment for Mossville residents.

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The massive Sasol chemical plant project is physically changing the Mossville landscape and geography. The town has almost no resemblance to what it looked liked before the chemical plant project.