Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1997

Sweet potatoes once led Sunset agricultural parade

by Jim Bradshaw

The railroad tracks at Sunset were lined with a dozen or more sweet potato barns, and more sweet potatoes were shipped from there than from any place else in the state.

In the early 1900s, southern farmers were in dire need of a cash crop to fill the gap left when the boll weevil decimated the cotton crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture encouraged sweet potato production, and tried to find ways to extend the potato's life, so that it could be marketed over longer periods of time. Curing houses evolved from this research, then marketing agencies.

One of the first marketing agencies was the Southern Sweet Potato Exchange, set up in 1919. It copyrighted the Golden Glow brand and launched a nationwide sales campaign. But the campaign promised more than the farmers could deliver. Production was still scattered across the South, and sweet potato quality was uneven at best.

That's when folks began to take a particular look at Louisiana. Researchers found that Louisiana's long growing season offered a better place than most for sweet potato production.

By 1900, there were as many as 200 varieties of sweet potato being marketed in the South. In 1908, still another variety was brought to North America from Puerto Rico. Called the Porto Rico sweet potato, it was first grown in Florida, but soon gained prominence among the types, and by 1929 most of the sweet potatoes planted in the South were Porto Rico potatoes.

It was about 1908 that yam production began in the Sunset area. A Texan named C.M. Porter, who had heard that yams were being grown in small quantities in Louisiana, came to the town and started learning about the crop. The farmers at the time grew only enough yams for their own use and stored them on the ground, covered with dirt mounds and corn husks.

Porter thought he could sell sweet potatoes if more of them would be grown. Leo Guilbeau, who at the time was farming with his father at Grand Coteau, joined Porter in that hope, and together they shipped a few carloads to Texas for sale.

At the time, farmers would bring in their loads of yams in wagons to the old railroad depot, which served as the center of operations. The potatoes were not washed, because farmers thought the water would cause them to rot more quickly. Instead, the sweet potatoes were dusted off with old grass sacks and loaded loose in a railroad car for shipping to Texas.

A little later they were shipped in 100-pound sacks. About 1915, farmers began sorting them into the crates that are still used today.

In 1915, Guilbeau went into partnership with John Sibille. They built the first kiln in Sunset. About five years later, J.P. Barnett of Opelousas bought out Gilbeau's share in that partnership, and Guilbeau continued on as a single operator until 1956.

For many years, the yams were sold only to the fresh market. By the middle-to late-1950s, however, most of the crop was being sold to 14 canneries and a few frozen food operations. At one point, Louisiana growers accounted for more than 25 percent of the U.S. sweet potato harvest and more than 40 percent of those sold in cans.