By Rickey Robertson
Saturday, April 12, 2025, was a beautiful sunny day for the annual Peason Ridge Heritage Tour. The US Army has allowed these tours for many years for both the Peason Ridge Heritage Families and the Camp Polk Heritage Families, with each group touring their old homeplaces, cemeteries, and historical sites. The Peason Ridge Tour started at Pine Grove Baptist Church located on La. Hwy 118 in the Peason Community, where everyone boarded the bus provided by the US Army. After a briefing by the Live Fire Personnel and Peason Ridge Heritage Family Member and Historian Rickey Robertson the tour group headed out.
When the group got to the massive Drop Zone and Forward Landing Zone Live Fire personnel advised the group of the type of airborne operations conducted at this location during rotations. Historian Robertson was able to tell the group how the cattle, horses, and livestock of the Heritage Families once grazed this very location and just down the road they drove through what was once the cotton fields of Andrew Bridges and the corn fields of Bill Haynes.
The group was shown where the headwaters of Anacoco Creek are located, then on to the Merritt Cemetery where there are four graves of two Peason Ridge landowners and settlers, Robert Conner and wife and Edmond Merritt and wife. The bus loaded, we went and were blessed to show one Heritage Family where their Great Grandfather Ezra Stewart once lived and farmed. They had never been to this old home place!
One of the exciting parts of the tour was the SACON Live Fire Village. Peason Ridge is the live fire area for all the units coming in for a training rotation. The Live Fire personnel explained the various tactics and techniques used to assault this large village. This village is large enough that a complete battalion of infantry can attack it. One thing was very evident and that was soldiers who train on Peason Ridge get the very best in combat training as they assault the many training sites located here.
After several stops, we ended up at what is known as “Church Gathering Hill”. This beautiful hill is right in the midst of 16 sections of land that the settlers and homesteaders set aside just for cattle and livestock grazing. No one was allowed to settle and live this area. Since there were no churches when the settlers first came and built farms on Peason Ridge they had to rely on “Circuit Riding Preachers” to bring God’s Word to them and they would meet at Church Gathering Hill near Odum Creek. “The Reverend Devil”, John Murrell, was known to actually preach at this location while he was in the Kisatchie Hills area. One story of the church site was the families had come riding horses and in wagons to hear the visiting preacher. All the cur dogs and yard dogs followed them to the site and just as the preacher began to preach all the dogs bayed on Odum Creek. The preacher told the men to ‘get their guns and let’s go see what they bayin’ at!’ The story goes they went to Odum Creek and killed a bear that the dogs had cornered! At one time Odum Creek had a set of “falls” that the water ran over but through the years of training with armored and tracked vehicles they have sanded in. As we traveled back through the old grazing lands the tour group was fascinated by the beauty of the area. No wonder our ancestors settled here!
Even though our families lost all the old places the Heritage Families still hold the land near and dear. It is still a part of each of us. Now the US Army is the steward of our old places, and we know that thousands of soldiers have trained here to fight to keep our most precious commodity. That precious commodity is FREEDOM! Hope to see y’all next year in April for another tour of God’s Country known as Peason Ridge!