Olla, LA

Olla has two starting points. The older one was Castor Sulfur Springs, a steamboat landing on Bayou Castor before the railroad changed the map. In 1891, tracks were built more than a mile away, and a new town was laid out around them and named for Olla Mills, a local woman known for her education and community work. Olla incorporated in 1899, then made a strange bit of Louisiana history when a train was held up there in 1900. The town’s groundwater later supported Olla Bottling Works, while the Olla State Bank helped carry the area through the Great Depression.

Today, Olla’s downtown has a federally recognized historic district with a town square, farmers market pavilion, community center, museum, and parade route. Yellow daffodils fill Olla Town Park each spring, and the fall Homecoming Parade, Celebration, and Festival folds local school traditions into the historic core. Olla Elementary occupies the former Olla Military Institute and high school grounds, so one generation’s campus sits directly over another’s. Set in the Louisiana Central Hill Country halfway between Monroe and Alexandria, Olla serves as a regional meeting point, with Bayou Castor, the fairgrounds, and La Salle High School events giving the town a calendar bigger than its footprint.