1925 Biography - Louis U. Babin

Louis U. Babin, a prominent figure in connection with banking and real estate enterprise in the city of Baton Rouge, is a citizen who has translated a fine spirit of civic loyalty and progressiveness into concrete results of value to the community. He has no small amount of leadership in the various movements that are making for the upbuilding of the Greater Baton Rouge, and is an enthusiast in all that touches the welfare and promise of the fair old capital city of Louisiana.

Mr. Babin Was born at Dutch Town, Ascension Parish Louisiana, May 16, 1873, and is a son of Adam Ulysses Babin, who was born at the same place November 11, 1852 and who became one of the extensive planters and influential citizens of his native parish. He retired from the active management of his Plantation in the year 1919, and now resides in the home of his son, Louis U., of this review. He is a democrat of unswerving loyalty, and is a communicant of the Catholic Church, as also his wife. Mrs. Babin, whose maiden name is Elodie Blouin, was born in 1853, near Dreyfus, Iberville Parish, and her death occurred in 1883. Of the Surviving children Louis U., of this sketch, is the eldest; Alice is the wife of William W. Phillip, of Prairieville, Ascension Parish, where Mr. Phillips is a successful agriculturist and also president of the Farmers' Co-Operative Market Association of the parish; Dr. Harry J. is a dentist by profession and is engaged in practice in Baton Rouge.

The public schools of his native town afforded Louis U. Babin his early education, and he remained on his father's plantation until 1889. He next gave three years to clerical service in mercantile establishments at Darrowville, Ascension Parish, and then established his residence at White castle, Iberville Parish, where he continued his association with business enterprise until 1896. He then became a partner in a general mercantile business at Hope Villa, in his native parish, and later he held a confidential position in the employ of General 0. A. Bullion, of that parish. In 1905 he severed this alliance, and in January of the following year he became identified with the Baton Rouge Wholesale Grocery Company, which he founded and of which he continued the president three years. He then turned his attention to real estate operations, in which he has developed the leading enterprise of the kind in East Baton Rouge Parish. In this important line of business he is now the senior member of the firm of Babin & Brown, with offices in the New Reymond Building. Mr. Babin was one of the first to bring about in this section of the state the subdivision of large plantations, and his firm controls a large and important business in the handling of suburban acreage, subdivisions, timber lands, farms and plantations, besides making a specialty of investments and loans. The junior member of the firm is Cyrus J. Brown.

Mr. Babin was one of the organizers of the Union Bank & Trust Company of Baton Rouge, in 1917, and has been its vice president from the time of its incorporation. He is president of the University Realty Company and also the Mutual Realty & Development Company, and is secretary and treasurer of the Avery Realty Company. He helped organize the Baton Rouge Building & Loan Association, of which he is a director. Mr. Babin was chairman of the steering committee to build one of the first good road links in the parish of East Baton Rouge and probably in the state, the present Jefferson Highway through this parish. He is a charter member of the National Jefferson Highway Association and has a life membership in the United States Good Roads Association.

Mr. Babin has always taken a great interest in public schools, realizing the need of educating the farm boys in the proper direction, was a promoter in assisting to build and equip Oak Grove School, Ascension Parish's first agricultural high school in the state, before Louisiana adopted laws recognizing this type of school. In recent years he served on committees to help build schools in the city of Baton Rouge.

The brief statements made in this connection indicate that Mr. Babin is one of the foremost in the advancing of the civic and material progress of his home city and parish, and, indeed, of this entire section of his native state. He has been specially active and influential in furthering the progressive policies of the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, of which he is a charter member and of which he was president two terms, besides having given eighteen years of service as a member of its Board of Directors. He is a charter member also of the Baton Rouge Golf and Country Club. He is individually the owner of a large amount of valuable realty in and about Baton Rouge, and his holdings include his attractive home property on North boulevard.

As a thoroughgoing democrat Mr. Babin has taken loyal interest in furthering the party cause. He is a member of the police jury of his parish, a position to which he was first elected in 1920, and to which he was re-elected in 1934 for a second term of four years, and is also a member of the finance committee of this body. He and his wife are communicants of St. Joseph's Church, Roman Catholic, and he is affiliated with Baton Rouge Council No. 969, Knights of Columbus; Live Oak Camp No. 14, Woodmen of the World; and Baton Rouge Aerie No. 1083, Fraternal Order of Eagles. Mr. Babin had the distinction of serving as the first collector of the port of Baton Rouge, this being the seventh in relative importance of all the seaports of the United States. He was vital and resourceful in all local patriotic services in connection with the nation's participation in the World war, and his financial contributions were on a parity with his influential activities along this line.

While president of the Chamber of Commerce Mr. Babin called and presided over the first meeting of the Baton Rouge business men when consideration was taken of the site on which is now being erected, in connection with the University of Louisiana, the largest and finest agricultural college in the South, at an expenditure of about $7,000,000. He was the one who first realized and brought forward for consideration the splendid site for the new college buildings.

On the 8th of February, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Babin and Miss Anna Bullion, daughter of General Octavius A, and Elmire (Babin) Bullion, both now deceased. General Bullion was a gallant soldier of the Confederate army in the Civil war, was four times wounded, and among his specially hazardous services were those rendered as a courier in the command of General John B. Gordon. The General became an influential merchant and agriculturist in Ascension Parish, and represented that parish in the Louisiana Legislature eight years. Mrs. Babin was graduated from the Louisiana State Normal College at Natchitoches. Mr. and Mrs. Babin have one son, Louis Winbourne, who was graduated from the University of Louisiana as a member of the class of 1923 and with the degree of Mechanical Engineer, and who is now (1924) a student in historic old Harvard University.

Note: The referenced source includes an autographed portrait of the subject.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 77-78.