ALEXANDRIA, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., on the south bank of the Red river, in the centre of the state; the capital of Rapides parish. It is on Federal highways 71 and 165, and is served by the Louisiana Railway and Navigation Company, the Texas and Pacific, the Rock Island, the Missouri Pacific, the Southern Pacific and the Louisiana and Arkansas railways, and by steamboats on the river. The population in 1920 was 17,51o, (45% were negroes), and 23,025 in 193o.
The city is on a level plain in the centre of extensive forests of long-leaf pine, interspersed with various hard woods. Rice, cotton, sugar, alfalfa and vegetables are the principal crops raised in the vicinity. There are over 'co factories in and near the city, with an aggregate output valued at $15,000,000, including saw mills, a creosoting plant, foundries and machine shops, cottonseed oil mills, brick yards, an oil refinery, broom-handle and talcum factories and railroad repair shops. The city has a large wholesale and retail trade. A free traffic bridge leads to the town of Pine ville, on the north side of the river (pop. io2o, 2,188), where there is a national cemetery. A state hospital for the insane, and Louisiana college, a Baptist co-educational institution which was opened in i906, Camp Beauregard (8,000 ac.), a U.S. Veterans' hospital, the State Industrial School for girls and the State Colony for the feeble-minded are also near by.
Alexandria was named after Alexander Fulton, on whose grant from Spain the first settlement was made in 1785. It was incor porated as a town in 1818 and received a city charter in 1882. In May 1863 and again in March 1864, it was occupied by Union forces under Admiral David D. Porter and Gen. N. P. Banks. When finally vacated, May 12-13, 1864, the city was almost entirely burned. The Union gunboats, which had passed up the river toward Shreveport at high tide, were caught above the falls at Alexandria, and saved by a splendid piece of engineering (a dam at the falls) by Lieut.-Col. Joseph Bailey (1827-67).