BIG WOODS : Vermilion Parish Towns & Cities, Louisiana
Submitted by Kathy LaCombe-Tell
Source: Jim Bradshaw; Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, 6/24/1997
Submitted August 2004

**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************
 
 


BIG WOODS (Grand Bois) 

Big Woods may have been named by the early settlers as Isle de Grand 
Bois. It is truly an island, about 2,800 acres of high land surrounded 
by some 3,000 acres of swampland. Communities in the Big Woods area 
include Mouton Cove, Theall, Esther, Hope Mill. 

Sugar cane was grown on the island itself, and a syrup mill operated 
about the turn of the century on its western end by George Stansbury, 
was said to have produced the finest syrup in the area. Other syrup 
mills dotted the outskirts of the big island and were owned by Pierre 
Cessac, Jim Mestepoy, Numa Bernard, and the Dakar family. 

Around 1908, the first road was built across the swamps and through Big 
Woods. A resolution passed by the parish provided that every able-
bodied man between 18 and 36 years of age had to donate 12 days a year 
free labor to help build the road. 

Men climbed tall cypress trees and pointed out the right direction to 
keep the road going straight. Cypress trees were cut and laid in a mat. 
Later dirt was shoveled in wagons, hauled in, and used to cover the 
cypress logs.