Recently I’ve seen more interest in our local history. Topics that come up from time to time are stories about Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the events of the late 1860s in Opelousas.
Those years of Reconstruction were a troubling time in our history. For over a decade Opelousas saw a lot of unpleasantness. Politics became toxic, filled with horrible name-calling and hurtful speech. This led to the Opelousas Massacre of September 1868. Parlons discussed a part of this story recently in an article about the St. Landry Progress newspaper of that time. But there is much more to this story since the effects of that 1868 incident lasted for many years.