DeSoto Parish, Louisiana

==History==
It is a typical misconception that the parish was named after [[Hernando de Soto (explorer)|Hernando de Soto]], the [[Spaniard]] who explored the future southeastern [[United States]] and discovered and named the [[Mississippi River]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n104 105]}}</ref>  The parish was in fact named after the unrelated Marcel DeSoto, who led the first group of European settlers there, to a settlement historically known as Bayou Pierre.<ref>Means, Emilia Gay Griffith, and Liz Chrysler.  ''DeSoto Parish.''  Arcadia Publishing, 2011, p. 8.</ref>  The parish's name is also commonly misspelled following the explorer's name as "De Soto Parish," but it is properly spelled following the settler's name as "DeSoto Parish."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.desotoparishclerk.org/|title=DeSoto Parish Clerk of Court – Honorable Jeremy M. Evans|website=www.desotoparishclerk.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-03-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727170616/https://desotoparishclerk.org/|archive-date=2019-07-27|url-status=dead}}</ref>