Towns: Joyce, Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Peggy Chandler Beaubouef, 2656 Hwy 1232, Winnfield, LA 71483


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SOURCE: "Louisiana Places" April 13, 1975, by Clare D'Artois Leeper

(Note: This was a column that ran in the Baton Rouge Advocate (?? I think) for
a number of years. The columns had been published in book form which I found
in the genealogy section of LSUA library, Alexandria, LA.)

JOYCE

Joyce (Winn) was incorporated on May 13, 1963, and less than a year later was
un-incorporated. A local group, including many former employees of the Tremont
Lumber Company, had initiated the incorporation proceedings. When the
proclamation was made public, it was found that the town had incorporated a
large balloon type area including the Tremont Lumber Company and its several
subdivisions. This would have caused the Tremont Lumber Company to be assessed
more than 95 percent of the total assessment in the newly incorporated town
without having any voice in the management of the town as no voters lived
within the plant area.

At this time the Tremont Lumber Company was owned by the Joyce family, and it
was being operated by Mrs. Joyce. She was the former Peggy Hopkins, the silent
screen movie star. Following her husband's death, she managed the company and
it was she who was in charge when the sawmill moved from Rochelle (Grant
Parish) to the site now called Joyce. The Joyce plant was much larger than the
one at Rochelle; the Joyce plant had, in addition to a sawmill and a kiln, a
veneer (plywood) plant and a flooring mill.

After the town of Joyce was incorporated, Mrs. Joyce called in the gentleman
who provided the information for this column, Mr. Bill Stanford of Baton
Rouge. As tax representative of the company he prepared a study on how
incorporation of the town affected the industry.  The study was presented to
the governor with the request that he conduct his own independent
investigation.

Accordingly, on January 22, 1964, Gov. Davis issued a supplemental
proclamation un-incorporating the town, thus making it, as far as is known,
the only town in Louisiana that became officially non-existent less than a
year after it was created.