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

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Gueydan

The town of Gueydan is located in northwestern Vermilion Parish, 30 
miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. The town occupies a portion of a 
huge estate of 40,000 acres of land (9 miles long and 6 miles wide) 
that was owned by Jean-Pierre Gueydan. 

He and his brother, Francois, had left their native France in 1845 and 
established themselves as merchants in the newly formed town of 
Abbeville, east of Gueydan. In 1862, they bought their first 323 acres 
of Louisiana marshland fair prices ranging from ½ cent to 75 cents per 
acre. They bought another 680 acres in 1883, and the area became known 
as "Gueydan Pastures." 

The brothers concentrated on developing the area but ran into 
opposition from the original Acadian settlers. Francois gave up, sold 
his share in 1885 to Jean-Pierre for $8,140.20, and returned to France. 
In 1888, Jean-Pierre finished his plantation home, across from the 
present cemetery. He called it St. Bonnet. 

Gueydan Pastures' reputation began to grow and other interests came 
into the area, bought property, and concentrated on growing rice. 
Realizing the need for better transportation, Jean-Pierre managed to 
convince the Southern Pacific Railroad to extend its line down from 
Midland. He then hired C. C. and W. W. Duson to lay out a new town 
along the rail line. The first name for the town was Lockwood. Rice 
mills, warehouses, stores and other businesses were soon built there. 

About this same time, Jean-Pierre founded the Vermilion Development 
Company and opened a water pumping system. 

Lot sales in Gueydanville, as "Lockwood' had become, began in November 
1896, after an extensive advertising campaign which brought train 
excursions from across the United States. Gueydan soon became the 
shipping center for the growing rice business of the area. 

Gueydan was incorporated as a village on July 19, 1899, with a 
population of more than 250. Murphy Foster, grandfather of the present 
governor, signed that proclamation. On Aug. 9, 1899, Gueydan's first 
mayor, H. B. White, presided over the first assembly of the Council of 
the village of Gueydan. That first meeting was held in J. P. Gueydan's 
office, where he could keep an eye on things. Aldermen were J. T. 
Guillentine and W. L. Doss. Henry L. Gueydan, Jean-Pierre's son, was 
the first town clerk. The village officially became a town on Dec. 2, 
1902, when its population reached more than 1,000. 

Gueydan prospered over the years, but there were setbacks, too. Fires 
destroyed large parts of the town in 1901, 1903, 1910, and 1927. The 
town had to be evacuated during the flood of 1940 which did 
considerable damage. 

Farming, particularly rice farming, has been the mainstay of the 
Gueydan economy, even though U.S. surveyors early on described the 
countryside thereabouts as "sea marsh and overflowed lands unfit for 
cultivation." 

The oil industry came to town in 1931, when Pure Oil established 
operations there. The first producing well in the parish was completed 
in 1932, touching off an era of growth for Gueydan. 

Gueydan's first school built in 1894, consisted of a single room. The 
first high school was completed in 1909. 

According to an account by Father John Engbers, who was pastor there 
for many years, that first school was opened in a small building on the 
Gueydan plantation. There were 10 pupils at least on the first day. 

According to the Engbers account: "There were only nine pupils on the 
eighth ward on the opening day. The parish superintendent at Abbeville 
had promised to send a teacher when ten pupils could be enrolled. The 
patrons, anxious to get their school going, overcame this difficulty by 
importing a 15-year-old boy ... from an adjoining ward." 

He continues: "The increasing number of settlers very soon made this 
first building too small and the parents got together to build their 
first official school budding. From the swamps they collected the 
necessary trees, which were sawed at the Evans sawmill on Bayou Queue 
de Tortue. This one-room school was ready for use in the fall of 1897, 
and its first teacher was Mr. Mooney." 

Establishment of a Catholic Church in Gueydan started with the purchase 
in 1900 of a frame building. Until then, Monsignor Peeters, pastor at 
Jennings, visited Gueydan once a month to say Mass in a building that 
had once been a saloon. The first Catholic Church in Gueydan was built 
in 1904. That frame building served the community until the pastorate 
of Father A. F. Garneau, who built a new church in 1937. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1905 with Rev. J. A. 
Carruth as the first pastor. Rev. J. W. Nasisteen had begun coming to 
Gueydan from Crowley for services in 1897. Services were at first held 
in a rented store building, then in a blacksmith shop, and then, later, 
in the school house. 

Gueydan Baptist Church was organized in March 1902. Dr. C. A. Schilling 
was the first pastor and services were held two times a month on 
Sundays, alternating with the Methodists. 

Today, nearby rice fields, marshlands and lakes have made Gueydan a 
mecca for duck and goose hunters each fall, and it is the host each 
fall of the Duck Festival.