Ashland, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

Ashland is a village in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. it is the third least populous municipality in Natchitoches Parish (after Powhatan and Robeline, Louisiana) It was incorporated in 1963. A few residences and a convenience store to the north spill over into neighboring Bienville Parish. The population was 291 at the 2000 census but went down 9 percent to 269 in 2010. The median age is 45.7 years. Ashland is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Area but is located nearly forty miles to the north of the parish seat of Natchitoches.
History.
The Ashland mayor is W. Gahagan Lee. The village council consists of Wayne Best and Carol Doyle, both Democrats, and Vincent Bown, a Republican. The police chief is Fred Holland, a Democrat. All of the Ashland town officials were unopposed for new terms in the primary election held on October 2, 2010.
On September 2, 2011, a forest fire destroyed ten houses between Ashland and Creston, but residents escaped personal injury. According to Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Mike Strain, the blaze scorched several thousand acres and was propelled by past drought conditions combined with high winds coming from the aftermath of Tropical Storm Lee in the Gulf of Mexico.