LAURENT'S POINT : 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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LAURENT'S POINT 

Laurent's Point, today mostly memory, was once a leading settlement in 
the early development of the Lake Arthur area. It was on a strip of 
land jutting out into the lake from the south shore, midway between the 
place where the Mermentau River enters Lake Arthur and the part of the 
lake called The Narrows. 

Gustave Laurent, son of a French immigrant, moved to the point about 
1845. He and his wife, Carmelite Hebert, opened a store that became the 
trade center for the area. The French settlers around Laurent's Point 
engaged in farming, cattle raising, and logging. Trade goods came to 
the store via Leesburg (as Cameron was called then) up the Mermentau 
River in sailing schooners, which, in turn, hauled locally produced 
goods to Galveston and other ports. 

Oranges were one of the leading exports from Laurent's Point, many of 
them grown on Hermosa Plantation, owned by the Laurents. 

Laurent's Point had one of the first rice mills in southwest Louisiana, 
and the first post office in the area was in Laurent's store. 

A ferry ran between Laurent's Point and the Lake Arthur community for 
some years in the late 1800s.