Michael de Riviere Pithon, born to an aristocratic French family in 1771, fought alongside Napoleon, and immigrated to Louisiana in 1814, settling on 167 acres on the southeast shore of Lake Charles. The Pithon family legends state that he bought some of the land directly from Native Americans and paid for it with a jug of whiskey and two good blankets. Pithon Street and Pithon Coulee are both named for this early French transplant. A portion of that land became Margaret Place as detailed in “Who is Margaret and why does she have a place?“