Coosha  Coosha, also commonly known as Coosha Town, is a former settlement of the Choctaw Nation in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. It was a member of the larger community known commonly as the "Coosha towns," which made up part of the Eastern division of the Choctaw Nation in pre-colonial America. The village, which has been abandoned since the mid-nineteenth century, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1978. The name "Coosha" is derived from the Choctaw "Kushak" or "Kusha", meaning "reed" or sometimes "reed-brake" because most of the area around the headwaters of the Chickasawhay River was covered in reed-brake before European settlers arrived. The reeds were so tall that the native Choctaw were able to and often would hide horses stolen from plantations by white thieves, prompting a creek nearby Coosha to be named "Issuba in Kannia bok" (English: "Lost Horse Creek"). The most common English transliteration of the name is probably "Koonsha", but the town's name is sometimes also spelled "Coucha", "Kunshak", "Coonsha", "Conshaques", or "Concha". The National Register Information System, a database of listings on the National Register of Historic Places, uses the spelling "Coosha." Coosha is listed as "Concha" on Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville's map of 1732 and Baron de Crenay's map of 1733 and as "Coosha" on Bernard Romans's map of 1775. On the 1820 map "Louisiana and Mississippi" by Henry Schenck Tanner, it is shown as "Koomsha Town." On John R. Swanton's 1931 map included in his book "Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians", the town's name is spelled "Kunshak." Though Coosha appears on many early maps, the precise location of the settlement is not well documented. Richelle Putnam states in "Lauderdale County, Mississippi: A Brief History" (2011) that the site is located near present-day Naval Air Station Meridian, close to Daleville, Mississippi. The "Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society" in 1902 locates the settlement four miles southeast of "Old Daleville," now known as Lizelia, Mississippi.