Cotile Lake Recreation Area

A parish irrigation project meant for rice and soybean fields turned into the summer headquarters of central Louisiana. Rapides Parish completed the dam in October 1965 to water the flatlands around Boyce, fifteen miles northwest of Alexandria. The lake filled — 1,775 acres of it — and families started showing up on weekends. A swimming beach went in. A bathhouse. Full-hookup RV sites at thirty dollars a night, tent sites at nine. The lake works for water-skiing, fishing, boating, hiking. The beach has bathhouse facilities. People come because a flood-control reservoir accidentally became the place you go when it's hot and you want to be on water. No one planned it as a destination. It became one anyway, which is how most good things happen in Louisiana — something built for work turns into something built for weekends, and both functions hold.