Photograph: Part of Opelousas National Historic District, entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, pictured in 1994.
Carola Lillie Hartley
Publisher and Contributing Writer
Where can you find the Michel Prudhomme Home? Where can you find St. Landry Catholic Church? Where can you find Holy Ghost Catholic Church? Where can you find the Old City Hall Building? Where can you find the Venus House? Where can you find the Weir Building? Where can you find Le Vieux Village de Poste des Opelousas? Where can you find the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum, the Opelousas Museum, or the Creole Heritage Folklife Center? Where can you search archives that documents over 200 years of St. Landry Parish history?
Those kinds of questions could be asked over and over again and the one answer would always be the same. OPELOUSAS!
Those historic places and things make our hometown of Opelousas special. It’s those properties and documents along with our unique music and food that attract people from other areas to travel here to visit and enjoy what we have. And there are so many more unique places and articles in this town. People can find things here that they will not find anywhere else.
Those things that are unique to this historic city should be protected and should be maintained. Why? Because once they are lost, they can never be replaced. When they are gone Opelousas will no longer be that unique place that people love to visit.
That is why we say historic preservation is important. Those buildings are not just “old buildings,” those documents are not just old pieces of paper. They are much more than that. They are our history, our story and our cultural DNA.
Opelousas may be just another small town, but it has a BIG story to tell. Let’s be sure to preserve and protect those things that make our story so special.
