April 15, 1804                                Joseph Bowmar takes command at Fort Miro
May 1805                                      Charles Le Paulmier Dannemours of Baltimore,  is appointed Parish Judge
September 1805                             James McLaughlin, former treasurer, succeeds Charles Dannemours as Parish Judge
                                                     First Sheriff was Andrew Kay, First Court Clerk William Haughey
1807 Reorganization                       Henry Bry, a native of Switzerland is named Parish Judge
                                                     John Hughes was one of the first Justices of the peace.

May 1, 1819                                  The parish seat is renamed Monroe in honor of  James Monroe the president or the first steamer that came to dock in the area. Judge Bry is credited with the name change.

                       One of the earliest known marriages in the parish was that of Eleanor Hook and Abraham Morehouse in September of 1799. Eleanor Hook was an orphan and a ward of Charles Dannemours. In 1780, a primitive French settlement marked the beginning of the area then known as the Ouachita Settlement. In 1783 Jean Baptiste Filhiol was appointed by the Spanish crown to oversee the region. By 1790, Filhiol established a fort named Miro after Esteban Miro. Fort Miro remained the parish seat until May 1, 1819. On this day the first steamer traveled to the settlement named the James Monroe, named after the President James Monroe.  The people were so excited that a committee was formed by Judge Bry to welcome the steamer and her captain, and it was decided to name their town Monroe.  One of the historical sites in  Monroe is Layton Castle. This home was built by Judge Bry and his wife Marie in 1810. Monroe has gone through many courthouses in it's history. The first being a crude structure of hand hewn logs, erected in 1805 by land donated by Jean Baptiste Filhiol. A few years following a better building was constructed and it is this latter that the Federal soldiers fired upon. It was a brick structure which was completely destroyed but, the records were saved thanks to a resourceful clerk. It was the later part of 1866 when it was decided to build another courthouse and city hall. Court sessions were being held in the Union Church in Monroe. The courthouse burned in 1882, and in 1883 another structure was built to replace the on lost by fire. On March 16, 1923 voters elected to build another courthouse, this building was completed in the fall of 1925. Today a marker, commemorating the existence of the courthouse sits outside of the courthouse. It reads "This marker is placed by Fort Miro Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, on property donated as a seat of justice by Don Juan Filhiol in 1816 out of his plantation at the Prairie des Canots."

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