Fenton named for family from New York Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Kathy LaCombe-Tell Source; Jim Bradshaw; Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, Submitted June 2004 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************Fenton is on U. S. 165 at its intersection with La. 102 in northwestern Jefferson Davis Parish. It was named for Silas J. Fenton, who arrived there with his family from Canton, N.Y. on January 8, 1888. In the spring of 1892, Fenton built a home on the present town site. According to a recollection in 1965 by then-mayor George H. Greene, "The first mail service from Welsh to Guidry, north of the present side Edna, and on to Fenton, was in 1892. The north room of the S. J. Fenton home housed the first post office." In 1893, Fenton built a post office-store that today would be east of Second Street and west of U.S. 165, near the Fourth Avenue railroad crossing. That building was destroyed by fire in 1895, and a new building put up at the site of the present post office. When the post office was first established at Fenton, there were no roads or railroads to the place, only trails winding through the surrounding prairie. The first graded road in the community ran east and south from Fenton for several miles. In 1892, a school was built on S. J. Fenton land. Lumber for the building was donated by I. J. Mills, father of Fenton's first school teacher, Jennie Mills. A two-story brick school house was built in 1915. A high school was constructed in 1937. S. J. Fenton donated 240 acres for a town site in 1893 or 1894. Half of that went to the Watkins Railroad Co. in payment for plotting the town. The railroad came through in 1895, and W. M. Fenton, son of Silas, served for two years as the first agent and telegrapher. A year later, I. J. Mills built the first rice mill in the city. The Village of Fenton was incorporated in 1951, largely as the result of an effort to speeding on U. S. 165. Incorporation proceedings were begun by the Fenton Lions Club. Nicholas Langley was appointed the first mayor by Gov. Earl K. Long, and Ernest J. Karam was Fenton's first elected mayor. Fenton still is an agricultural community serving the area's rice and soybean farmers and cattlemen in the area.