Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, August 26, 1997

Church Point developed along Bayou Plaquemine Brulee

by Jim Bradshaw

Pierre Louis Guidry was the settlement's first merchant, who probably opened his store there about 1840. Jean Barousse, a native of France, was also a pioneer merchant, arriving in Church Point in the 1840s. Other early businessmen were Leonard Franques, Jules David, and Ernest Daigle, all of whom were in the business at least in the 1870s, and possibly before that.

In 1848, the Jesuits of Grand Coteau were asked to establish a church in the settlement. They had been coming to the area for some time to say Mass and administer the sacraments in the Guidry home. The Jesuits bought land and a church building was secured by the Daigle brothers and hauled into town. The small chapel, measuring 20 by 30 feet, was the first Catholic church established in the Acadia Parish area.. Preceded only by the churches of Opelousas and Grand Coteau, it was the third Catholic church to be built in St. Landry Parish.

A larger church building replaced the first chapel in 1851. Three years later the Daigles donated five arpents of land to the church, adding to the original tract bought by the Jesuits.

A school was in operation in Church Point in 1856, in a small room adjoining the Catholic chapel. Teachers were paid for two months' work each year. A new school building was constructed in 1875. This one accommodated about 35 pupils who went to class three or four months of the year. The Sisters of Immaculate Conception opened a Catholic school at Church Point in 1914.

The first post office at Church Point was established in 1873, with Jules David as first postmaster. The attractions of the town were detailed in an Opelousas Courier article of May 15, 1880:

"Church Point is the name of a pretty little hamlet situated on Bayou Plaquemine, about 15 miles from Opelousas. It is one of the healthiest locations in St. Landry Parish, and is thickly settled with industrious and neighborly citizens, mostly Creoles yet with quite a sprinkling of the American population."

According to the newspaper account, the town had two stores, a blacksmith and wagon shop, a boot and shoe shop, a sugar mill, a school, a Catholic church, and a resident physician. The citizens, the writer said, were "good, happy and contented."

The town was incorporated in 1899. Pioneer merchants included Jean Barousse, Leonard Franques, P.L. Guidry, J.B. David, Thelesmar Guidry, Etienne Latiolais, H.D. McBride, and Moses Landry. Just after the turn of the century, P.L. Guidry and some others began to promote the organized sale of lots in the town. The first sale was on Dec. 19, 1905 when 120 lots were auctioned and six were donated for a public school. A second sale took place in 1908, after the Opelousas, Gulf, and Northeastern Railroad was completed to Church Point.

The railroad track reached Church Point on April 19, 1907, and by year's end the town could boast, besides the new railraod depot, a new hotel, a new printing office, a dozen or so new homes, warehousing foe the new goods the railroad would haul, and other new construction.

Early this century, Church Point was in the center of the Acadia Parish cotton industry and boasted four cotton gins at one time. The boll weevil eventually did in much of the cotton crop there, and farmers turned to corn, sugar cane and rice.

A vegetable and fruit canning plant was set up in 1913, and that first year processed 40,000 cans of blackberries, figs, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and cane syrup.