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Office: Morehouse Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness – coordinated with the Sheriff’s Office; the Sheriff’s Office plays an instrumental role in disaster rescue, relief, and restoration operations parish-wide.
Sheriff: Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s Office – 351 South Franklin Street, Bastrop, LA 71220 | (318) 281-4141 | Fax (318) 283-1773; Sheriff Mike Tubbs, in office since 2008, a Northeast Louisiana University graduate; 144 regular deputies plus 25 part-time deputies. Morehouse Parish Detention Center – (318) 281-9336 or (318) 874-7855 | Fax (318) 281-5019.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-165 and US-425 serve Bastrop, the parish seat, in Northeast Louisiana near the Arkansas border.
Notes: Morehouse Parish, formed in 1844, is named for Colonel Abraham Morehouse, a Kentucky settler who acquired much of the region’s land after purchasing it from Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop. The Baron himself – a Dutch nobleman who had fled to Spanish Louisiana amid accusations of embezzlement and used a falsely claimed noble title to secure a massive Spanish land grant here – later moved on to Texas, where he became instrumental in Stephen F. Austin’s American colonization efforts; the city of Bastrop, Texas is also named for him.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Morehouse Parish Courthouse – built 1914, downtown Bastrop.
Notes: Bastrop is genuinely one of the birthplaces of Louisiana’s 20th-century paper industry. International Paper Company (through its predecessor, Bastrop Pulp & Paper Company) built the Bastrop Mill in 1921 and the Louisiana Mill in 1924, and contemporary reporting at the time predicted the mills would make Bastrop “the paper mill center of the whole South.” The mills were among the region’s largest employers for nearly a century, accounting for more than a quarter of the parish’s economy at their peak, before the Bastrop mill closed in 2008 – a major economic blow to the community.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Morehouse Parish Veterans Affairs – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/morehouse-parish.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Morehouse Parish Library (main branch, Bastrop) – confirm current address/phone via morehouseparishlibrary.com.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The North Louisiana Cotton Festival and Fair (held annually each October in Bastrop) and the historic 1914 Morehouse Parish Courthouse are the parish’s premier attractions.
Notes: The genuine “paper mill center of the South” ambitions and eventual 2008 mill closure are a notable piece of 20th-century Louisiana industrial history covered in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Morehouse Parish Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/morehouse-parish.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Bastrop Animal Shelter (operated with Morehouse Humane Society) – 6878 Mer Rouge Road, Bastrop, LA 71220 | (318) 283-0288; the Morehouse Humane Society is a 501(c)(3) no-kill nonprofit that has partnered with the City of Bastrop for over 30 years to run the shelter; Email: [email protected]. Hours: Mon-Fri roughly 9 AM-3 PM (sources vary slightly – confirm current schedule); a small boarding fee applies for reclaimed pets.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Morehouse Parish Police Jury Public Works – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/morehouse-parish.
NOTES: Morehouse Parish is the fourth parish in the sixth batch of the Louisiana v2 A+ sourced standard. The genuine “paper mill center of the South” ambitions and eventual 2008 mill closure are a notable piece of 20th-century Louisiana industrial history covered in this project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Morehouse Parish County
Morehouse Parish is the site of the Mer Rouge Affair – the 1922 KKK murders of two young men whose mutilated bodies were found in Lake LaFourche drew national attention as one of the most notorious examples of Klan violence and impunity in American history.
Bastrop (the parish seat, population ~10,000) serves the northeast Louisiana Ouachita River bottomland communities between Monroe and the Arkansas border.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Morehouse Parish Assessor at 100 E. Madison Avenue, Suite 109, Bastrop, LA 71220, phone 318-281-3748. LA residential assessed at 10% of fair market value; $75,000 homestead exemption.
Courts & Legal
Morehouse Parish Clerk of Court at 100 E. Madison Avenue, Bastrop, LA 71220, phone 318-281-3343, handles successions.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
CLERK OF COURT (Records, Vital Records, Mortgages)
100 E. Madison Ave., Bastrop, LA 71220
(318) 281-3343
Genealogy
Parish-level record sources
Morehouse Parish Clerk of Court (succession/estate case files – see Succession section above).
The 1914 Morehouse Parish Courthouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a significant local landmark.
Local societies
No dedicated Morehouse Parish genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
A NOTE ON LOUISIANA LAW: Louisiana is the only U.S. state built on a civil-law tradition (rooted in the Napoleonic Code) rather than English common law. Louisiana doesn’t use the word “probate” – the equivalent process is called a “succession,” and its 64 parishes are the equivalent of counties elsewhere. Community property and separate property rules also work differently here than in common-law states, which can affect what’s actually part of the succession.
Where to go
Morehouse Parish 4th Judicial District Court, Clerk of Court 100 East Madison Avenue (P.O. Box 1543), Bastrop, LA 71220 (mail: 71221) (318) 281-3343 Morehouse Parish is in northeastern Louisiana, seated in Bastrop. The 1914 Beaux Arts Morehouse Parish Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 4th Judicial District also covers Ouachita Parish.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Small Succession Affidavit – under La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 3421 et seq., available for estates with a gross value of $125,000 or less at the date of death (or of any value if the decedent has been dead more than 20 years). No court proceeding is required. At least two people must sign – typically the surviving spouse (if any) plus one or more heirs, sworn before a notary. If the estate includes immovable property (real estate), the affidavit can’t be recorded until 90 days after the date of death, and it must be recorded with the Clerk of Court/Recorder in every parish where the decedent owned real estate.
Succession Without Administration (“simple possession”) – used when there are no debts to pay and all heirs agree; commonly resolved in 30 to 90 days via a Petition for Possession.
Administered Succession – required when a court-appointed succession representative needs to inventory assets and pay debts before distribution; typically takes 3 to 9 months, longer if contested.
Important: for anything beyond a small succession affidavit, Louisiana courts generally require a licensed Louisiana attorney to represent the succession – self-representation and generic online forms are not accepted the way they are in many other states.
Step 2: filing a regular succession
File a Petition for Possession (simple cases) or a Petition for Administration (if a representative and formal administration are needed) in the district court of the parish where the decedent was domiciled at death.
The court admits any will and, where needed, appoints an executor (testate) or administrator (intestate), issuing Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
In an administered succession, the representative prepares a sworn descriptive list of assets, pays valid debts, and accounts to the court.
The court issues a Judgment of Possession, which must then be recorded in the parish conveyance/land records and with the parish tax assessor to clear title.
What it costs
Filing fees vary by parish and case type; publication costs apply when legal notices are required.
A full administered succession typically requires attorney representation – flat fees for straightforward matters often run in the low thousands of dollars, more if contested or complex.
A small succession affidavit is far less expensive and, when no real estate is involved, can often be handled without an attorney – though even small errors can cause a bank, title company, or the Louisiana OMV to reject the affidavit.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
100 E. Madison Ave., Bastrop, LA 71220
(318) 281-4141
SHERIFF / TAX COLLECTOR
100 E. Madison Ave., Bastrop, LA 71220
(318) 281-4141
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
REGISTRAR OF VOTERS (Elections)
100 E. Madison Ave., Bastrop, LA 71220
(318) 281-3775
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Morehouse Parish Health Unit
(318) 281-3523
LA DCFS — Northeast Region
(318) 362-3263
LA Medicaid
(888) 342-6207
Morehouse General Hospital
mghbastrop.com (Bastrop — quality community hospital)
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Morehouse Parish Health Unit – confirm current contact via Louisiana Department of Health regional office listings.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
Population: 25,000
Area: 794 sq mi
Established: 1844
Public Records
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