Moving Forward Archive

Little general stores once could be found at practically every rural road intersection in St. Landry Parish. These family owned businesses sometimes served also as a post office and were usually a spot where residents of the area met to share news and neighborhood gossip.
Most of them are closed now, but thanks to a state grant and the diligence of Opelousas tourism officials, their memory and role in parish affairs will stay with us.
Opelousas Tourism was recently awarded $3,000 in state grant funding for a General Store Exhibit, which will be used to refurbish the Emar Andrepont store that was built in the Prairie Ronde community in the late 1880s. The general store operated for more than 100 years until it closed in the 1980s, according to Opelousas tourism director Melanie Lee-Lebouef.
It was moved in 1992 to Le Vieux Village, a 

cluster of vintage buildings on U.S. Hwy. 190 at the eastern entrance to the St. Landry Parish seat, The village was officially created in 1988 by the Opelousas Tourism and Activities Committee, but its development began in the early 1970s, when an old home donated by the Fontenot family was moved from the Grand Prairie area and placed next to a small tourist welcome center. The home, known as the Venus House, is one of the oldest Creole houses west of the Mississippi River.
“The interpretive exhibit will offer a look at a beautiful example of an early general store, considered to be the original ‘one-stop-shop,’ offering everyday items such as dry goods, produce and farm equipment,” Lee-Lebouef said. “This permanent exhibit will also include history about the store’s owner, Emar Andrepont.”

The exhibit is scheduled to be completed next month. It will feature original items and replicas of general store goods. Interpretive signs will tell about the history of the general store and the role it played in the community. The original cash register and an antique scale are being restored by Dry Max, a local restoration company, and by jeweler Robbie Sebastien.
Andrepont died on October 15, 1941. The store continued to operate until the 1980s, until the death of relatives Rose and Evrard Brown and later Ryan Brown. The estate was willed to the children of Andrepont’s sister, Alice Andrepont Ledoux, and her husband, Dewey Ledoux. The children donated the store, along with an outhouse, to the City of Opelousas. The move to Le Vieux Village in 1992 was funded by the Opelousas Tourism and Activities Committee and friends of the Andrepont family.
The grant for the creation of the general store exhibit at Le Vieux Village is administered through the State of Louisiana via a Certified Local Grant, which is funded through the National Parks Service. In addition to the current grant, Opelousas Tourism has been awarded more than $25,000 in Certified Local Grant funding through the years to fund 

projects such as a recent Zydeco interpretive exhibit as well as historic district walking tour guides, interpretive signage for Le Vieux Village and historic district street sign toppers.
Le Vieux Village has become a significant part of a growing cultural tourism industry in south Louisiana, which a recent study by the Center for Cultural and Eco-tourism at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette notes, ‘has become … giant in a state that sees over 20 million tourists a year.”
The village also includes an Orphan Train Museum housed in the old Union Pacific depot, the 18th century office of the late Dr. N.C. Lafleur, the old Whiteville schoolhouse, old Acadian and French Creole homes, the old Palmetto Methodist Church, and the childhood home of former Lafayette bishop Michael Jarrell. It now houses the Opelousas tourist information center.
Also to be found there are a Jim Bowie display in honor of the hero of the Alamo who once lived in Opelousas, and the Mary Jane train engine, built at the turn of the century. A farmers market pavilion was built nearby and has become a place to hold folk life festivals and other community cultural events.