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Evangeline Parish, La.

Visit the Evangeline Genealogical and Historical Society Website! Find out when the next meeting will be!

B. Jo Branch is the Parish coordinator
If you have any records or photos to add to this site please contact me.

In 1890, there were almost no roads and few bridges causing the distance 
of 30-40 miles to the parish seat of Opelousas, St. Landry Parish,
a hardship for many people to travel to pay their taxes, attend court, etc. 
Talk began of forming a new parish from St. Landry. 
In 1908, one of the political issues was the formation of a new parish. P. L. Fontenot, from Ville Platte, LA, introduced a bill  requesting the formation of this new parish.  This new bill passed the house and on  January 1, 1911 the new parish was created from St. Landry Parish.

 

The parish seat is Ville Platte, which means "Flat Town" in French. 

Ville Platte was founded by Major Marcellin Garand,  a veteran of Napoleon's Army who established a tavern  for thirsty travelers headed for Natchitoches  along the old Camino Real ("Royal Road"),  also known as the Spanish Trail. 

Ville Platte has been officially designated by the Louisiana Legislature
as the "Swamp Pop Capital of the World". This is in recognition of the town's long, rich history of developing swamp pop music including artists such as  the Boogie Kings, Rod Bernard, Tommy McLain, Joe Barry, Jivin Gene, Johnnie Allan, and Warren Storm.

Mystery Photos Page: Have photos that you would like to have help identifying? Send them in and they will be added to the Evangeline Par. Mystery Photo page.
Evangeline Par. Links

Home Pages:

Sacred Heart Catholic Church

Danahy Family

Ville Platte Gazette

Duplissey Family

Evangeline Genealogical Society

A Catholic Cajun Family

More Links
Map of LA parishes

NEIGHBORING PARISHES

St. Landry

Acadia

 Jefferson Davis

Allen

Rapides

Avoyelles

LINKS OF INTEREST
Michigan Library: offer scanned copies of books, directories, genealogies, etc. on their website for anyone to view. These books are not all necessarily for MI.
 
Cemetery & Gravestone Information

Evangeline Par. Archives

 

Lookup Volunteers

How to Subscribe to the Evangeline Parish Mail List

Read and Post to the Evangeline Parish Message Boards

 

USGenWeb Project

LAGenWeb Project

World GenWeb Project

Edward J. Hayden Jr. State Coordinator
Annette Womack Assistant State Coordinator.

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This page was last updated on Friday, 13-Nov-2009 05:03:03 EST
(c) 17 Jul 2004 - present

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