One can go to the Office of State Lands in Baton Rouge and get some really cool maps and surveyors' notes. Whenever (can't remember who?) started the whole section/township/range thing in the 1800s, surveyors had to go out and find the boundaries of each. They would walk the landscape and would have to find 'witness trees' for the corners of the T/S/R. They would find the closest tree to the corners and write down the species and diameter of the tree (for instance, say a 15" water oak). You can get the notes that they took while they were mapping all these things, you can get them for where your subdivision is, hunting club, or anywhere across the state. You can find out exactly what was there back in the mid to late 1800s. Some of the surveyors took really detailed notes while others just took info about the corners but its pretty cool to get these notes and a map of your area and see what was there before you.
Most of the area from Lafayette and west to Lake Charles and way north and south of there was all prairie, and its where you see rice fields now.
One thing that sticks out is reading one of them for the longleaf pine regions of Kisatchie. The surveyor was writing to say that they likely only had a few more days of the survey left because the 'annual wildfires' in the region were likely to be coming soon
cool story bro I know:*****: