ACADIA PARISH: Rice and Rails Made It Grow
Issue No. 3, August 26, 1997 of the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser's HISTORY OF ACADIANA, a publication of the Daily Advertiser dedicated to preserving Acadiana's heritage and culture

Even though Acadia Parish is named for the ancestral home of the Cajuns, les Américains and les Allemands were among the first to open its prairies--at first to raise cattle, then to make it a center of the rice industry.

1. Arrowheads and place names are reminders of Attakapas
2. Acadia was once part of Imperial St. Landry, Early parish landowners settled along the riverbanks
3. Acadia born in ashes of St. Landry courthouse, Legislature was asked first to name new parish after Nicholls
4. Duson brothers were pioneer builders in parish
5. Cornelius Duson ran from the law to Louisiana
6. Crowley was the dream city of W. W. Duson, Southwestern Louisiana Land Co. Brought settlers to new town
7. Rayne, Prairie Hayes, "Parkersonville" wanted Acadia Parish courthouse
8. Town was named for railroad man Patrick Crowley
9. Acadia communities inundated by Flood of 1940
10. Coureurs de bois were early traders in South Louisiana
11. 1895: Acadia Parish "was in a shroud of white"
12. Rayne moved when rails passed Poupeville, The town moved north in 1880
13. Frogs leaped onto Louisiana dinner tables long ago
14. The Fire Fiend: Rayne business section destroyed
15. Louisiana rice industry began on Acadia prairies, Crop became mainstay after railroad opened markets of the world
16. Plaquemine Brúlée was first American settlement
17. Church Point developed along Bayou Plaquemine Brúlée
18. Le Vieux Prèsbytere will become museum
19. Estherwood's first resident may have been a pirate
20. Solomon Wright was "Burbank" of industry, Innovator developed seed rice that saved Acadia farmers
21. Iota was first called Cartville
22. Mermentau area was "den of pirates and smugglers"
23. Morse was also built upon rice and railroading
24. Midland was once considered for Southern Pacific roundhouse
25. Germans among early settlers in Acadia
26. Mineral springs made Pointe-aux-Loups early health spa
27. Some thought Jayhawker Carriere was really a hero, His outlaw band reigned in area around Bois Mallet in 1860s
28. Acadia communities have colorful histories: Bayou Blanc, Bayou Mallet, Bayou Nezpiqué, Bayou Wikoff, Bois Mallet, Branch, Cartville, Cole's Settlement, Coulée Croche, Ebenezer, Egan, Eunice, Evangeline, Fabacher, Faquetaïque, Frey, Gott's Cove, Grand Marais, Gun Point, Long Bridge, Long Point, Lyon's Point, Maxie, Millerville, Mire, Mowata, Pitreville, Pointe Noire, Prairie Hayes, Prairie Mamou, Prudhomme City, Richard, Tasso, Whitehouse.
29. Some memorable dates in Acadia history
30. Further Reading on Acadia Parish