Ascension-East Baton Rouge County Louisiana Archives Biographies.....Babin,
Louis
May 16, 1873 -
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Mike Miller http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000912
October 7,
2006, 11:13 am
Author: Henry E Chambers
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.
Additional Comments:
NOTE:  A signed photograph/painting accompanies this narrative in the
referenced source.
A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 77-78, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published
by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.
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