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Office: Richland Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness – coordinated with the Sheriff’s Office; a member of the Richland Parish 911 Board.
Sheriff: Richland Parish Sheriff’s Office – 708 Julia Street, Suite 113, Rayville, LA 71269 | (318) 728-2071 | Fax (318) 728-6454; Sheriff Neal Harwell, in office since 2024, a Mangham High School graduate; 152 regular deputies plus 28 part-time deputies. Richland Parish Detention Center (Male) – 474 Highway 15, Rayville, LA | (318) 248-3057 | Fax (318) 248-3084; Richland Parish Detention Center (Female) – 414 Highway 15, Rayville, LA | same phone/fax.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-80 and US-425 serve Rayville, the parish seat, in the North Louisiana Delta Country, centrally located among seven similar Delta-region parishes.
Notes: Richland Parish, created September 29, 1868, is named for its notably rich, fertile farmland. Rayville itself is named for John Ray, a Monroe-area politician who once held extensive land in the area.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Richland Parish Courthouse – Rayville, LA.
Notes: Richland Parish is genuinely home to the first public parish-wide library in the entire state of Louisiana – the Rhymes Memorial Library in Rayville, built in 1925 by the Lambda Kappa Club of Rayville and donated by R.R. Rhymes in memory of his wife, Nonnie Roark Rhymes; the library relocated to its Louisa Street building in 1927 and was formally recognized as the first library organized under Louisiana’s new parish library law in 1928.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Richland Parish Veterans Affairs – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/richland-parish.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Richland Parish Library / Rhymes Memorial Library – 1410 Louisa Street, Rayville, LA 71269 | (318) 728-4806; the first public parish library in Louisiana, established 1925/1928. Services include wireless printing, mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, genealogy databases (HeritageQuest, Fold3, Ancestry Library Edition), and a summer reading program.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The historic Rhymes Memorial Library and the parish’s namesake fertile farmland/open Delta country are the parish’s defining features.
Notes: The genuine “first parish library in Louisiana” distinction is a notable civic-history fact covered in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Richland Parish Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/richland-parish.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
⚠️ No dedicated Richland Parish animal control phone number or shelter address was confirmed in current sourcing – multiple statewide directories list the parish’s animal control listing as unstaffed/no phone on file. Direct animal-related inquiries to the Richland Parish Sheriff’s Office at (318) 728-2071 pending confirmation of a formal parish program.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Richland Parish Police Jury Public Works – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/richland-parish.
NOTES: Richland Parish is the sixth and final parish in the seventh batch of the Louisiana v2 A+ sourced standard. The genuine “first parish library in Louisiana” distinction is a notable civic-history fact 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 Richland Parish County
Richland Parish is northeast Louisiana’s Boeuf River bottomland agricultural parish – the rich alluvial soils of the Boeuf River corridor produce cotton, soybeans, and row crops in the delta agricultural landscape between Monroe and Vicksburg.
Rayville (the parish seat, population ~4,000) serves Richland Parish’s cotton and soybean farming communities in the northeast Louisiana bottomlands.
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Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Richland Parish Assessor at 708 S. Julia Street, Suite 1, Rayville, LA 71269, phone 318-728-4491. LA residential assessed at 10% of fair market value; $75,000 homestead exemption.
Courts & Legal
Richland Parish Clerk of Court at 708 S. Julia Street, Rayville, LA 71269, phone 318-728-4171, 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)
200 Louisa St., Rayville, LA 71269
(318) 728-4171
Genealogy
Parish-level record sources
Richland Parish Clerk of Court (succession/estate case files – see Succession section above).
Richland Parish Library in Rayville holds significant local historical and genealogical materials.
Local societies
No dedicated Richland Parish genealogical society was confirmed in available directories, though the Richland Parish Library serves as a local resource.
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
Richland Parish 5th Judicial District Court, Clerk of Court Courthouse Square, 100 Julia Street (P.O. Box 119), Rayville, LA 71269 (318) 728-4171 Richland Parish was officially created September 29, 1868, named for the area’s fertile (“rich”) farmland, in the North Louisiana Delta Country. Its seat, Rayville, is also its largest town. The 5th Judicial District also covers Franklin and West Carroll parishes.
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
200 Louisa St., Rayville, LA 71269
(318) 728-2121
SHERIFF / TAX COLLECTOR
200 Louisa St., Rayville, LA 71269
(318) 728-2121
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
REGISTRAR OF VOTERS (Elections)
200 Louisa St., Rayville, LA 71269
(318) 728-4171
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Richland Parish Health Unit
(318) 728-3922
LA DCFS — Northeast Region
(318) 362-3263
LA Medicaid
(888) 342-6207
Richardson Medical Center
rmchospital.com (Rayville — quality community hospital)
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Richland 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: 20,000
Area: 563 sq mi
Established: 1868
Public Records
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