Gibsland is a town in Bienville Parish in northern Louisiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 979. The town is best known for its connecting railroads, as the birthplace of the defunct historically black Coleman College, and for the nearby shootings in 1934 of the bandits Bonnie and Clyde.Gibsland native John McConathy was a champion basketball player at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, who later was the superintendent for the Bossier Parish School Board, in which capacity he was the guiding force behind the establishment of the $57 million Bossier Parish Community College.