1.5 4 100+ 5 0.34
Miles Schools Species Neighborhoods Miles of Water Trail
NAVIGATE THE COATES BLUFF TRAIL REGION
A secret path through a hidden forest along a forgotten river exists in the eye of Shreveport, surrounded by Youree Drive, Shreveport-Barksdale Highway, Clyde Fant Parkway, and Stoner Avenue, the Coates Bluff Trail is the calm center of an urban storm.
The Coates Bluff Trail can be accessed by one of two sites (assuming you need to park a car): Viking Drive at SPAR's Valencia Recreation Center (behind Magnet High's softball field, look for the gap in the fence) and Sevier Street next to The Montessori School for Shreveport (across from a little school playground).
Click here for a trail guidebook.
OUR MISSION
To preserve and protect the Coates Bluff Nature Trail as a valuable inner-city, historical, ecological, and recreational resource and to utilize Coates Bluff as a natural setting for place-based education.
The Coates Bluff Nature Trail runs through a historically and culturally significant wooded strip and along a bayou from the Montessori School for Shreveport (MSS) to Caddo Parish Magnet High School. It’s an area that was once home to Caddo Indians and follows the preferred detour around the Great Raft on the Red River, the longest continuous log jam on the North American continent until it was cleared in the 1830s. It’s also site of the first trading post and post office in northwest Louisiana and the location of Hopewell Cemetery, one of Shreveport’s oldest African-American cemeteries.
