Black Cat Road, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Robert Vernon, Nov., 2000

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>From "Individual Studies of Place Names in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, James Valsin 
Coumes, Tangipahoa Parish Resource Unit, Tangipahoa Parish School Board, 1972."

BLACK CAT ROAD

Around 1931, Prentice Wainwright owned a grocery store of U. S. Highway 51, two miles south 
of Independence.  When customers came to the store, they always observed a jet black kitten.  
It grew to be a large cat and was, seemingly, a permanent fixture at the grocery.  In time the 
customers began to refer to Wainwright's store as the Black Cat Grocery.  The owner then 
officially named it this.

The original Wainwright's store with its large sign of a black cat burned, and later Anthony 
Orlando, holding with tradition, opened the new Black Cat Grocery on July 2, 1956.  Since a 
road leading from Highway 51 westward begins at the Black Cat Grocery, it came to be called 
the Black Cat Road to designate it location.