Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, August 26, 1997

Town was named for railroad man Patrick Crowley

by Jim Bradshaw

Crowley came to Louisiana with the Morgan Railroad. He was the section foreman who supervised the laying of the railroad from Lafayette to the Sabine River. At its completion in 1880, he became roadmaster for that section of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

At the time when the town of Crowley was being developed, Patrick Crowley had a spur track called "Crowley's Switch," with a section house and depot, just west of the town site. While the town was still on paper, W.W. Duson persuaded Crowley to move his section house and depot to the site of the new town, so that it would become a regular stop on the railroad line. Thus, the name of Crowley's Switch eventually became just Crowley.

Patrick Crowley never actually lived in the town that was named for him. He lived in Lafayette and Welsh before retiring from the railroad in February 1889. After retirement, he went to Lake Charles where he opened a steam laundry, the first in this section of the state. Crowley citizens sent their laundry to Lake Charles by train and got it back finished the next day. Pat Crowley was elected to three terms as Mayor of Lake Charles. During his tenure as mayor he began a horse-drawn trolley system in Lake Charles.

When he was 57 years old, Crowley suffered "an attack of paralysis from which he never recovered," according to a report of the day. He died on Aug. 20, 1909, and was buried in Lake Charles.