About: Mink, Louisiana

Mink is an unincorporated community in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States, approximately 100 miles (160 km) south of Shreveport. It is in Kisatchie National Forest. Mink was one of the last places in the United States to receive traditional landline telephone service. Service began in February 2005, when BellSouth spent $700,000, or about $47,000 per phone, to run a cable of 30 miles (48 km) through thick forests to the hamlet. The thrust to bring the telephone service to Mink began when a resident of the community, Alice Louise Johnson Bolton (1921-2014), a retired teacher's assistant, spoke out at a town hall meeting in Natchitoches in 2003 called by Foster Campbell, one of the five members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. When service finally came to Mink, Bolton's