The New Orleans Police Department reported an armed robbery and a carjacking in Uptown neighborhoods this week. The armed robbery occurred Wednesday (July 14) in the 1700 block of Upperline Street, near Carondelet Street. Just before 11 a.m., a 46-year-old man was held up at gunpoint by two men. The victim turned over his belongings; […]
Sue Strachan, Uptown Messenger
A tree is growing from the French Benevolent Society tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2.
The cemetery off of Washington Avenue in Central City is, to be expected, quiet on a Monday morning. Tombs in various states of care are engraved with names reflecting the teeming diversity of New Orleans when the cemetery was established in 1850: Oberschmidt, Armato, Battiste, Tujague, Noble.
Other tombs, the large multi-level ones, are often benevolent associations: Deutscheler Hendwerker Verein (German Craftsmen Association, 1868), Societé de Bienfaisance de Boucher (French Butchers Society, 1867), Young Men Olympia Benevolent Association, 1883, and Société Française de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle (French Benevolent Society, 1850).
I’m in the process of completing another book for the Opelousas Tales Series that will focus on the newspaper history in Opelousas. Our town has seen the creation of more newspapers than most other small towns across America. So many that Opelousas is known as the Graveyard of Newspapers.
While reviewing the materials I’ve collected over the last 40-plus years of researching this subject, I feel an important paper to the history of our town is one that was almost forgotten.
Let’s talk about the St. Landry Progress.
Studying the history of newspapers in Opelousas you’ll come across two named the St. Landry Progress one created in the 1800s and one created in the 1900s. Both were short-lived for different reasons. The St. Landry Progress of 1916, owned by Richard Price and Lawrence A. Andrepont, published by Louis Hebert, was first issued in December 1916. The last edition was in February 1917.