CAROLA LILLIE HARTLEY
Publisher and Contributing Writer
Featured Photograph: Dietlein Home on Main Street in Opelousas – c. 1969-70. Carola Lillie Hartley Collection
As early as 1847 on the southwest corner of Landry and Main streets (known as King’s Corner), Felix A. King (1819-1897) operated a wholesale and retail dry goods store. The King family lived in a beautiful house behind that business on the block that ran all the way to Vine Street. The King family owned that home until it was sold to Leonce Sandoz (son of Joel Sandoz), owner of the Opelousas Courier newspaper, who lived there with his family until his death in 1910.
In 1919 Mrs. Leonce Sandoz sold the old home to Frank Dietlein, Sr., a local jeweler. After that time the home was known as the Dietlein Home. The home was remodeled over the years. When the elder Frank Dietlein died, the home was owned by his children including Frank “Frankie” Dietlein, Jr.
In the early 1970s the home and property was sold to St. Landry Bank. In 1974, the King-Sandoz-Dietlein home, that stood in downtown Opelousas for over a century, was demolished. Today that property is part of the St. Landry Bank parking lot.
