The site of Rosecrans Memorial Airport was once called the French Bottoms. It was surrounded by four towns, three of which existed as late as 1979. The northern part of the French Bottoms was settled first, in the 1830s-50's, and has since washed away. The settlers were French-born and/or descendants of earlier French settlers. In 1877 most of the land that now comprises the airport was on a river bank on what was called "made land." This land had been formed by river deposits. By this year the French Bottoms had sixty houses, one church, and two schools. The rich river bottom land, totaling about five thousand acres (20 km²), was traditionally used for farming. Some of the descendants of the early French settlers still lived in the bottoms in 1939, when the area was razed to make way for the airport.