The town was named for the family of Dr. Joseph Moncla, native of France and a practicing physician of 19th century Avoyelles Parish. Dr. Moncla died while out on a call seeing one of his patients. Several of Dr. Moncla's sons settled on his former plantation along Red River. One was postmaster.
The area has never been incorporated. Moncla has been a favored point of river crossing of the Red River because of the Moncla Bluffs making passage possible in bad weather in the 1800s. A bridge, the third to serve the area, now spans the Red River at Moncla in Avoyelles Parish.[1]
