Louis U. Babin, E. Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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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:  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.