George E. Le Ray, Beauregard Parish Louisiana 
Submitted by Mike Miller 
Date: September 24, 2006



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George E Le Ray
December 15, 1869 

Author: Henry E Chambers 

George Edward Le Ray has been a registered pharmacist for over thirty years, 
and was one of the pioneer druggists of De Ridder. He is proprietor of the 
Ideal Drug Company of that city, and one of the prominent men of affairs 
there. 

He was born December 15, 1869, on a farm hear Brusly Landing, in West Baton 
Rouge Parish, his parents being Neumedia E. and Ernestine (Courtard) Le Ray, 
who were natives of the same parish and spent their lives as farmers in that 
locality. 

George Edward Le Ray, one of a family of six children, attended public schools, 
and up to the age of twenty-one was on the home farm. Following that he worked 
in a sugar mill and in other employment while studying pharmacy at night, and 
on November 10, 1893, after examination by the state board was given a 
certificate as a registered pharmacist. The following year he managed the store 
at Brusly of C. K. Schwing, and under whom he had studied pharmacy. Mr. Le Ray 
in 1894 came out to Southwest Louisiana, and at West Lake was manager and a 
stockholder in the West Lake Drug Company. Following that he was in business 
at Sulphur with Dr. D. S. Perkins, and in 1905 located at De Ridder, where he 
was first associated with Dr. S. T. Roberts in the drug business and later in 
business for himself. For four years from 1908 he was a druggist at Brownsville, 
Texas, but in 1912 returned and established the Ideal Drug Store at De Ridder. 
He has made this one of the best equipped drug stores in the southwestern 
quarter of the state. Mr. Le Ray also owns a fig and orange grove near De Ridder. 
He has served as a member of the city council, belongs to the Chamber of Commerce 
and is affiliated with De Ridder Lodge No. 271, Free and Accepted Masons; Hines 
Chapter No. 54, Royal Arch Masons, and the Knights of Pythias. He married at West 
Lake, Louisiana, Mattie Iles, who was born at Sugartown, daughter of Dempsey Iles, 
and member of a prominent family, some record of whom appears elsewhere in this 
publication. Mrs. Le Ray is an active worker in the Baptist Church. They have two 
sons, Travis and Harold. 

Additional Comments: 
A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 282-283, by Henry E. Chambers. 
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.