Lafayette, Broussard and Acadiana Louisiana real estate listings, home buying, selling and relocation information

LAFAYETTE

Laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll is the Cajun motto and Lafayette is the hub and heart of the eight-parish region in southwest Louisiana region known as Acadiana. Named for the French Canadian settlers who settled the area in 1755 after fleeing English persecution in their homeland, Acadiana is justly renowned for its unique Cajun and Creole heritages, French language and cultural traditions. The eight parishes that comprise this hub area are Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Mary and Vermilion, and each and every one boasts lovely cities with comfortable homes to suit every pocket book and every lifestyle.

Lafayette is the unofficial capital of Cajun Country with a gleaming present as well as an exciting and captivating past. It's a modern metropolis displaying an extraordinary mixture of tradition and progressiveness where the rich French heritage blends with Spanish, American, Indian and African influences creating a colorful combination that can't be found any place else on earth.

Year-long attractions include two recreations of early Cajun settlements, Acadian Village and Vermilionville, the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve and Acadian Culture Center, the Lafayette Natural History Museum & Planetarium, the Lafayette Museum/Alexandre Mouton House not to mention numerous fine restaurants.

Seasonal attractions include the stunning Azalea Trail in spring, Festival International de la Louisiane in April, the largest free Francophone cultural festival in the world, La Fête des Acadiens and the Summer Music Festival, both in August, Festivals Acadiens in September and Christmas on the Bayou and Christmas Comes Alive at Acadian Village.

Lafayette is home to the Southwestern campus of the University of Louisiana, which creates a rich intellectual climate that enlivens the city and fills it with educational opportunities. UL Lafayette operates the Center for Louisiana Studies, the Acadian and Creole Folklore and Folklife Center and the Southwestern Archives. The school's nationally ranked athletic teams are called the "Ragin' Cajuns" and "Lady Cajuns" and there's nothing more exciting than cheering them on to victory. Lafayette also boasts its own professional hockey team, the Ice Gators that play in the Cajundome, the city's world class civic arena.

Lafayette is located west of Baton Rouge along Interstate 10, scenically set on the banks of the Vermilion River. Situated among forests and prairies as well as breathtaking bayous, swamps and marshes, the city has a population of approximately 110,000 and features good schools and incomparable recreational opportunities. Boating, fishing, swimming, hunting, birding, hiking and biking are but a few of the activities offered in local parks and recreation areas. The sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and famed Lake Charles are an easy drive making Lafayette the essence of Louisiana's proud reputation as a sportsman's paradise.

The folks here are friendly, the festivals are lively and the unique Acadian heritage creates a joie de vivre you'll call it fun. Make your home in Lafayette and laissez les bons temps rouler every day of the year!

LOCATION
The city of Lafayette is located at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 49 between New Orleans and Houston, only 15 miles west of the Atchafalaya Basin and 35 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. It is located in the center of Lafayette Parish which is set in the stunningly beautiful Acadiana region of south central Louisiana.

The city is situated in a geographical area of forests and prairies interlaced with bayous, swamps and marshes. Lafayette is the fourth largest city in Louisiana and is scenically set on the Vermilion River. It is a commercial and shipping hub as well as medical center for the area and flaunts a colorful Cajun atmosphere. Lafayette Parish, which also includes the charming towns Scott, Duson, Carencro, Youngsville and Broussard, has approximately 200,000 residents and the city of Lafayette is the Parish Seat.

Lafayette is 50 miles west of Baton Rouge, 129 miles west of New Orleans, 215 miles east of Houston, 402 miles east of Dallas and 586 miles southwest of Atlanta. Neighboring parishes include St. Martin Parish and St. Mary Parish on the east, St. Landry Parish to the north, Vermilion Parish on the south and Acadia Parish on the west.

TRANSPORTATION/AIRPORTS
Lafayette is conveniently located at the intersection of I-10 and I-49, halfway between New Orleans and Houston. It is the transportation hub of the south central Louisiana region and offers excellent roads and highways, a modern airport, easy rail connections and a nearby port.

Lafayette is home to the largest airport in the area and is served by Continental, Delta and Northwest Airlines. Continental connects you to its hub in Houston, Delta to its hubs in Dallas and Atlanta and Northwest to its hub in Memphis so there's access to hundreds of domestic as well as international destinations. It's easy to fly Lafayette to the world! The Acadiana Regional Airport in New Iberia is approximately 20 miles south and provides regional leisure travel options on small planes and helicopters while airports serving private aircrafts are located in communities throughout the area.

Lafayette has a well integrated and easy to use public transportation. The Lafayette transit system operates bus routes throughout the city running from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM with an adult fare of seventy-five cents. There's an Amtrak station right in town and the famed Sunset Limited stops in Lafayette on its ride across the country from Florida all the way to California. Greyhound has a fully staffed, 24 hour depot downtown and there are several taxi, limousine and shuttle services so getting into around town is never a stressful experience.

There are 6 ports nearby, 4 of which are within a 30 mile radius including the Port of Iberia, Port of West St. Mary, Port of Vermilion and Intracoastal City. Those ports interconnect with the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway creating a web of water highways that rival those on land.

BRIEF HISTORY
Only a few trappers, traders and ranchers were present in the Lafayette region prior to the Spanish occupation of 1766. The first settlement in south-central Louisiana, known as Petit Manchac, was established by the English who used it during the Revolutionary War as an outpost. A small trading post was built on the banks of the Vermilion River where the Old Spanish Trail crossed the bayou, about where today's Pinhook Bridge is located.

The historical event which had the greatest cultural impact on Lafayette was the migration of the Acadians from French Canada after "Le Grand Derangement" in 1755. For refusing to pledge allegiance to the British crown, which required renouncing their traditional Catholic religion for that of the Anglican Church, they were forced from their homes in 1755. This cruel and tragic event separated families and forced people to flee with only the possessions they could carry. Homes and crops were burned by the British and the Acadians went to sea under dreadful conditions where more than half lost their lives. This event remains a focal point of Acadian history to this day.

Most of the exiled Acadians followed the path which led to New Orleans where they received a hostile greeting from the French aristocracy so they headed west into unsettled territory. They homesteaded along the bayous of south central and south western Louisiana where they could live according to their own beliefs and customs. With the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Louisiana then became possession of the United States.

In 1821, Jean Mouton, an Acadian, donated land for the construction of a Catholic church. On May 15, 1822, the church parish of St. John the Evangelist of Vermilion was created encompassing the area from Mouton's plantation in Lafayette, south to the Gulf of Mexico and west to the Sabine River.

The settlement grew around the church and on January 17, 1823, the Louisiana Legislature created Lafayette Parish from the western portion of what was St. Martin Parish. Mouton made a second land donation to the new community, this time for a courthouse in the town of Vermilionville, which became the new parish's seat. The settlement grew and the town of Vermilionville was renamed Lafayette in 1844 in honor of the French Marquis de Lafayette.

By the turn of the century Lafayette was a prosperous agricultural town when it was selected as the site of the first campus in the University of Louisiana System. UL Lafayette was founded in 1900 as the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute. In 1960, the institution gained university status and became the University of Southwestern Louisiana and is now not only the oldest but also the largest campus in the University of Louisiana System.

By the 1940s, the nature of the city's economy changed and the petroleum and natural gas industry became dominant. The energy industry has served as the lifeblood of the city since that time although in recent decades the economy has become diversified and includes a strong transportation, medical and research components as well as a celebrated tourist industry.

The Cajun spirit of the forbearers of Lafayette remains alive in the zesty attitude towards life displayed by the diverse population that mixes the disparate French, Spanish, American and African cultures into a spicy gumbo of interesting attractions, celebrated dining options and acclaimed Zydeco music that keeps the past always present in modern day Lafayette.

ABOUT EDUCATION
Lafayette is as proud of its schools and educational programs as it is of its Acadian culture and traditions. Boasting a strong and dedicated staff of professional and support personnel, the Lafayette Parish School System includes 45 modern school campuses with over 30,000 students. There are approximately 2,200 well trained, credentialed teachers and over 1300 other professional and support personnel.

The public school system has been nationally acclaimed for its educational excellence and schools are fully accredited by the Louisiana Department of Colleges and schools. The student teacher ratio is 17 students per teacher and on tests that measure how well students are mastering the specific skills defined as necessary for graduation, in English students scored at 67% compared to the state average of 48% and in math students scored at 71% compared to the state average of 51%.

There are more than ten private, religious elementary schools and 6 private religious high schools offering both coeducational as well as single-gender educational opportunities.

Local colleges and universities include the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as well as Southern University and A & M College, 60 miles away in Baton Rouge. Renowned Tulane University in New Orleans is just a little more than a two hour drive east and the Southern Louisiana Community College in New Iberia is only a twenty minute drive south.

UL Lafayette is the region's main institution of higher learning with an enrollment of 17,000 students from 75 countries. 115 undergraduate degree and 28 masters' degree programs are offered on the main 137-acre campus famous for its scenic beauty and acorn grove. The university has a 600-acre farm/renewable resources laboratory with a 30-acre pond for crawfish and catfish culture in Cade, LA as well as the 48-acre New Iberia Research Center in New Iberia, LA, which is one of the largest private primate breeding colonies in the world.

The schools of biology, cognitive science, Francophone studies, computer science and computer engineering are particularly acclaimed and the degrees they grant are highly prized. In athletics, Louisiana's Ragin Cajuns and their feminine counterparts the Lady Cajuns, compete in NCAA Division 1, the highest level of Collegiate Athletics in nine sports.

Tuition and fees are very reasonable for a school of its caliber. Undergraduate, full-time tuition for in-state residents is currently $1,614 per year and the UL Lafayette is included in the 2005 edition of The Best 357 Colleges guide published by the Princeton Review. The university's MBA program is included in the 2005 edition of The Princeton Review's Best 143 Business Schools and the university will be featured in the 2006 edition of America's Best Value Colleges, a Princeton Review college guidebook that will include fewer than 100 schools in the whole country.

BROUSSARD

Bienvenue or welcome to the colorful town of Broussard. Home to many commuters who work in nearby Lafayette and New Iberia, Broussard rightly declares itself, "simply the best place to be!" A charming, small, residential town but also the home of many diversified businesses where care has been taken to preserve historic architecture, in Broussard you can celebrate the past while keeping your sights set firmly on the future.

Take a drive down Highway 182 winding its way through downtown Broussard and discover restored, late 19th century Victorian frame houses typical of the grandeur of uptown New Orleans. Broussard offers a unique blend of residences and small town business establishments serving industry, commerce and agriculture throughout the area.

There's an old-time gasoline station with crimped, tin siding and a false front that's so quaint you'll think it's from a movie set, but it's the real backdrop when you make your home in Broussard. You'll find a restaurant offering excellent cuisine in a pink-roofed restored Victorian house with glassed-in porches and high ceilings and just down the block is a Senior Citizen's Center in another fine restoration where older folks from all the surrounding areas find friendship, entertainment, education and cultural activities.

Broussard's historical architecture has been preserved, while the area has kept pace with 20th century technology and industry. Industrial growth is strong and Broussard prides itself as the kind of community where commerce and quality of life can grow in an environment of political hospitality and cooperation. Yet, you can still experience Broussard's bygone charm by dining on delicious Creole and Cajun home cooking in acclaimed local restaurants.

That careful blending of history, culture and industry are what give Broussard its unique qualities and its appeal to artists, many of whom live in town adding a creative element to the mix of commuters, businessmen and industrialists.

As a small town located on major transportation arteries, Broussard includes industrial and commercial advantages of a major metropolitan area. Broussard is one of the fastest-growing areas in the state and only became a city two years ago when its residential population boomed. Construction has begun on a 10-screen multiplex movie theater and two new branch banks are being built. Broussard is first in commercial and residential growth in the whole state of Louisiana with the highest per capita income and among the top ten fastest growing cities on the Gulf Coast.

Within the past year, several new businesses have built stores along Albertson Parkway, which extends from US-90 to LA-89. There's a new hardware store, car rental agency, paint and body shop, specialty meat company and tire store, with more development expected. A new strip mall is also going up on Morgan Street and the storefronts are all filled in the Albertson Shopping Mall while another new business in town will build frames for race cars.

Broussard has gone from a horse and buggy community, with large sugarcane plantation homes, to a current day industrial community with over 300 businesses. It's an exciting place to call home where strong growth means strong real estate appreciation aided by good schools, excellent recreational opportunities and a nice selection of housing options.

When Valsin Broussard laid out the street plan in 1870 for a little village which would later be named after him, he began a new community which today has picturesque, historical charm and the industrial and commercial amenities of a large metropolitan area. Clearly Broussard simply is just the best place to be!

LOCATION
Broussard is located in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana in the south central part of the state. Nestled within the Cajun Country Region, between Lafayette and St Martinville along US Highway 90, just south of the I-10, it's situated near the Atchafalaya River and Lake Fausse Pointe. The highway provides easy access to interstate highways as well as the Lafayette Regional Airport and Acadiana Regional Airport. Both airports provide commercial passenger and freight services.

Broussard is approximately 6 miles southeast of the city of Lafayette and lies on the flood plain of one of the old meandering courses of the Mississippi River, approximately 1 mile south of the embankment. Geographically, the area is mostly coulees, bayous and swampy areas and the land is very rich and fertile. Broussard is a town of almost 9,000 residents and part of the Lafayette metro area.

Broussard is 63 miles west of Baton Rouge and 140 miles west of New Orleans. Houston is 223 miles west, Dallas is 400 miles west and Atlanta is 600 miles northeast. Neighboring parishes include St. Martin Parish and St. Mary Parish on the east, St. Landry Parish to the north, Vermilion Parish on the south and Acadia Parish on the west.

TRANSPORTATION/AIRPORTS
Broussard is set along US Highway 90, just south of the I-10, the main east-west state artery as well as the I-49, the region's main north-south artery. It is conveniently located in an area with an ultra modern transportation infrastructure of well maintained highways, roads and bridges.

Lafayette, just minutes away, is home to the largest airport in the area. Lafayette Airport is served by Continental, Delta and Northwest Airlines. Continental connects you to its hub in Houston, Delta to its hubs in Dallas and Atlanta and Northwest to its hub in Memphis so there's access to hundreds of domestic as well as international destinations. It's easy to live and Broussard and fly Lafayette to the world! Acadiana Regional Airport in New Iberia is approximately 14 miles south and provides leisure travel options on small planes and helicopters plus airports serving private aircrafts are located in communities throughout the area.

While Broussard does not have its own public transportation system, nearby Lafayette has well integrated and easy to use public transportation that connects to Broussard. The Lafayette transit system operates bus routes running from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM with an adult fare of seventy-five cents. There's an Amtrak station right in Lafayette and the famed Sunset Limited stops there on its ride across the country from Florida all the way to California. Greyhound has a fully staffed, 24 hour depot in downtown Lafayette and there are several taxi, limousine and shuttle services so getting into and around region is never a stressful experience.

There are 6 ports in the area, 4 of which are within a 30 mile radius of Broussard including the Port of Iberia, Port of West St. Mary, Port of Vermilion and Intracoastal City. Those ports interconnect with the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway creating a web of water highways that rival those on land.

BRIEF HISTORY
Broussard was founded in 1884 and named after Valsin Broussard, a prominent local merchant and direct descendant of Joseph Gaurhept Broussard de Beau Soleil, one of the first 200 Acadians to arrive in Louisiana on February 27, 1765 aboard the ship Santo Domingo.

Sometime before the Civil War, Valsin Broussard acquired land in what was then called the Cote Gelee area. He realized that a trading center was necessary to serve the people of the area and there was speculation that a railroad would soon be built. Broussard had the foresight to understand the impact this would have on the potential of the town.

Settlement back then was limited to a few a few areas in and around St. Martinville, New Iberia and Vermilionville, which came to be known as Lafayette. The isolation of the area generated a growing crime problem. The limited law enforcement agencies became increasingly ineffective in dealing with organized groups of bandits who preyed on local residents. Consequently, citizen committees were formed and the first one organized in Lafayette Parish was the Cote Gelee Vigilance Committee founded by Valsin Broussard after his own store was robbed.

Organized criminals called themselves anti-vigilantes and the countryside became an armed battleground. The criminal stronghold was in southwest Lafayette Parish where they had constructed a fort near Bayou Queue Tortue. On September 3, 1859 the vigilante wars were brought to an end when a force of 700 soldiers attacked the group of 1800 outlaws at their fort. The attack was a tremendous success and most of the outlaws fled never to return.

In 1860, the Civil War erupted and the Broussard area bore the repeated movement of Confederate and Union forces as they skirmished to control their respective supply lines as well as the state. During the years immediately following the Civil War, Valsin Broussard worked diligently on his realization of a town. He donated land for a church and cemetery site, private school and public school sites, a railroad depot site, the right-of-way for a railroad and the streets for a town.

In appreciation for Valsin's leadership and land donations, the people of the area agreed that the town be named Broussardville in his honor. In 1874 the first post office was established in Broussard and the town was incorporated in 1884. Two years later, in 1886, the townspeople had become unhappy with their government and chose not to elect new officials, allowing the charter of incorporation to lapse. It was not until 1906 that the town was reincorporated and a new government established.

During the early years, agriculture provided the livelihood for the majority of Broussard's residents. Cotton and sugar cane were the major crops and the Cote Gelee rebounded fairly quickly from the Civil War. The railroad from New Orleans to Morgan City had been completed before the war and construction continued further west towards Broussard when hostilities finally ended.

In 1878 the railroad arrived in Broussard bringing with it new prosperity by providing a means transportation for farm produce exports and dry goods imports. As the century closed, Broussard had a cotton oil mill, two cotton gins, several sugar and syrup mills, five general merchandise stores, a bank, two hotels, an express railway and passenger depot.

Suddenly, disaster struck in the form of the cotton boll weevil and the cotton industry was literally wiped off the map and the cotton gins abandoned. Farmer's immediately turned to sugar cane in an effort to maintain their economy and by the end of the Great Depression the transition from cotton to sugar cane was complete.

Mechanization of farming procedures drastically reduced the labor force required for cultivating sugar cane. Fortunately the majority of the people previously employed in harvesting sugar cane were gradually absorbed by the growing petroleum and related service industries. Beginning in the early 1950s the development and growth of the Lafayette Oil Center generated an urban growth explosion for the entire area.

The largely agricultural economy of the Broussard area rapidly changed to fast-growth urban development. Agricultural land was converted into residential use and apartment complexes, shopping centers, and industrial parks were built. As a result Broussard was transformed from an agricultural village to a town that is now commercial and residential.

The majority of the people living in Broussard work in Lafayette or in the outlying plains and waterways although there is still a great deal of agricultural industry and sugarcane remains the cash crop of choice. There is also soybean and hay production as well as horse and cattle farming but the principal industries are oil and gas service companies, food distributors, real estate development and manufacturing.

Broussard has emerged through years of industrial growth as a quiet, but prosperous and thriving community playing an important role in the oil and gas industry for which this part of Louisiana is known worldwide.

ABOUT EDUCATION
Broussard offers quality educational opportunities in both public as well as private settings and local students score above the mean on standardized achievement tests. Broussard is part of the Lafayette Parish Public School System, which is nationally acclaimed for its educational excellence and schools are fully accredited by the Louisiana Department of Colleges and schools.

Boasting a strong and dedicated staff of professional and support personnel, the Lafayette Parish School System includes 45 modern school campuses with over 30,000 students. There are approximately 2,200 well trained, credentialed teachers and over 1300 other professional and support personnel.

The student teacher ratio is 17 students per teacher and on tests that measure how well students are mastering the specific skills defined as necessary for graduation, in English students scored at 67% compared to the state average of 48% and in math students scored at 71% compared to the state average of 51%.

There is one local public elementary school and one local public middle school while the public high school is located in Lafayette about 7 miles away. There are two private schools within Broussard including St Cecilia School (pk-8) and Episcopal School of Acadiania (grades 6-12).

Nearby colleges and universities include the University of Louisiana at Lafayette only seven miles away as well as Southern University and A & M College, 60 miles away in Baton Rouge. Renowned Tulane University in New Orleans is just a little more than a two hour drive east. The South Louisiana Community College at New Iberia is approximately 15 miles away.

UL Lafayette is the region's main institution of higher learning with an enrollment of 17,000 students from 75 countries. 115 undergraduate degree and 28 masters' degree programs are offered on the main 137 acre campus famous for its scenic beauty and acorn grove. The university has a 600-acre farm/renewable resources laboratory with a 30-acre pond for crawfish and catfish culture in Cade, LA as well as the 48-acre New Iberia Research Center in New Iberia, LA, which is one of the largest private primate breeding colonies in the world.

The schools of biology, cognitive science, Francophone studies, computer science and computer engineering are particularly acclaimed and the degrees they grant are highly prized. In athletics, Louisiana's Ragin Cajuns and their feminine counterparts the Lady Cajuns, compete in NCAA Division 1, the highest level of Collegiate Athletics in nine sports.

Tuition and fees are very reasonable for a school of its caliber. Undergraduate, full-time tuition for in-state residents is currently $1,614 per year and the UL Lafayette is included in the 2005 edition of The Best 357 Colleges guide published by the Princeton Review. The university's MBA program is included in the 2005 edition of The Princeton Review's Best 143 Business Schools and the university will be featured in the 2006 edition of America's Best Value Colleges, a Princeton Review college guidebook that will include fewer than 100 schools in the whole country.

ACADIANA

Bienvenue or welcome to Acadiana where you're always encouraged to "laissez les bons temps rouler" or let the good times roll! Acadiana is the popular term given to an eight-parish region the includes Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Saint Landry, Saint Martin, Saint Mary, and Vermilion with Lafayette Parish as its heart. (Unlike other states, Louisiana has parishes rather than counties.)

French-speaking Acadian refugees, driven from their homes in Acadie, now Nova Scotia, by the British in 1755, settled along the swamps and bayous after wandering for 10 years along the Atlantic seaboard. They quickly adapted to their strange new environment and were soon harvesting crawfish, shrimp, crabs and oysters. They built houses and boats called pirogues from cypress trees, trapped beaver and muskrat, and grew rice, hot peppers and okra. And they developed a style of cooking that has become world-renowned, with savory, spicy dishes that include crawfish pie, gumbo, jambalaya and other delicious concoctions.

Despite the frequent association of Cajuns with swamplands, Acadiana actually consists mainly of prairies, marshes, and wooded river or bayou lands. The term Acadiana was coined by accident around 1963, when a Lafayette television station owned by the Acadian Television Corporation, received an invoice bearing a typographical error. Someone had mistakenly added the letter "a" to the end of Acadian, forming Acadiana. The station's manager found the new word catchy, particularly as it seemed to combine the words Acadian and Louisiana. The station began using the new word to describe the region covered by its broadcast signal and the word soon took on a life of its own, used to describe most of south Louisiana.

Now the term "Acadiana" has come to include the area from just east of New Orleans to the Texas border and about 100 miles inland to Marksville. Major cities within the area are Lafayette, New Iberia, Houma, Opelousas, Lake Charles, Thibodaux, Eunice, St. Martinville, Donaldsonville, and Crowley.

Not everybody who lives in Acadiana is culturally Acadian or speaks the Acadian dialect of the French language, nor is everybody who is culturally Acadian or "Cajun" descended from the Acadian refugees. Acadian French is only spoken as a mother tongue in rural areas, with cities such as Lafayette and Houma being mainly Anglophone. In some more assimilated areas where the Acadian language was lost due to government schooling and social forces, there is a growing popularity of learning Acadian French as a second language.

The charming accent spoken in the region tends to be uniform regardless of ethnicity. In addition to the Acadians, Acadiana is home to several Native American tribes and two other unique languages and subcultures. There are enclaves of black speakers of French or Spanish-based Creole languages as well as German speakers who found their way to Acadiana during the 19th century migration from Europe. More recently, political refugees from Southeast Asia have brought their families, cultures and languages to the area fishing industry.

The best way to see Acadiana is by driving the back roads that honeycomb the area. The small towns that surround Lafayette are each famous for a different specialty, attraction or bit of local history and are all easily covered by a series of short day trips. Fans of Florida's Okefenokee will likely make a 10-minute eastward shot to Henderson, gateway to the expansive Atchafalaya Basin swamp. Henderson's location on the edge of the Atchafalaya makes it the best place to explore the moss-covered swamp primeval, preferably by guided boat. Be sure to enjoy the area's famed crawfish etoufee, crawfish tails smothered in rich sauce and served over rice or sample other specialties fresh from the nearby Basin.

Leaving Lafayette in a southerly direction will take you toward Acadiana's bayou country. The slow-moving Bayou Teche winds its way through the sugar fields and coastal plains of St. Martin and Iberia Parishes. New Iberia's historic Main Street, home of the antebellum showpiece Shadows on the Teche, is a stunning example of historic architecture under a canopy of moss-draped live oak trees. Seven miles southeast of New Iberia, Avery Island contains the famed McIlhenny Tabasco Factory and stunning Jungle Gardens bird sanctuary. A quick jaunt down Highway 14 leads to the double-squared town of Abbeville, where dueling restaurant dynasties Black's Oyster Bar and Dupuy's Oyster Shop battle for the hearts taste buds of loyal mollusk lovers.

And finally, there's the escape that leads northward, into the Cajun Prairie where cattle graze contentedly, flooded rice fields double as crawfish farms and Mardi Gras celebrants ride from farm to farm on horseback, singing for chickens in the rural tradition. It's also home to the peaceful gardens of Grand Coteau, the Zydeco palaces around Opelousas, and the beautifully restored Liberty Theater in Eunice. On Saturday nights, the Liberty hosts Rendezvous Des Cajuns, a Cajun French radio program where Barry Jean Ancelet takes the stage for a two hour live broadcast of Cajun music, stories and culture that beams outward to all of Acadiana.

After any one of these trips, you'll be amazed at how much culture can be packed into one little section of one beautiful state. When you make your home in Acadiana you can revel every day in the quick-stepping, hard-eating times that can only be had in the unique land that lies south of the South.

LOCATION
Acadiana is located in south-central Louisiana on terrain that ranges from low gentle hills in the plains of the north section, to the dramatic swamps and marshes of the coastal parishes. High capacity, modern highways are the lifeline of the region and the web of roads includes US Highways 90, 190 and 167 as well as Interstates 10, 55 and 49 which are the major transportation arteries.

Major waterways are vital to the commercial and recreational activities of the region. Seaports, rivers, lakes, bayous, canals and spillways dot the landscape. The Mississippi River is vital to the eastern section, the Atchafalya wetlands to the middle, with Lake Charles and the Sabine River enabling shipping traffic to the western portion. Fresh and saltwater lakes, along with almost the entire Louisiana portion of the Intracoastal Waterway, enable the flow of people and materials

Acadiana is located approximately 50 miles west of Baton Rouge, 129 miles west of New Orleans, 215 miles east of Houston, 400 miles east of Dallas and 600 miles southwest of Atlanta.

TRANSPORTATION/AIRPORTS
Acadiana is crisscrossed by high capacity, modern highways including US Highways 90, 190 and 167, as well as Interstates 10, 55, and 49 which are the major transportation arteries.

Lafayette is home to the largest airport in the area and is served by Continental, Delta and Northwest Airlines. Continental connects you to its hub in Houston, Delta to its hubs in Dallas and Atlanta and Northwest to its hub in Memphis so there's access to hundreds of domestic as well as international destinations. It's easy to fly Lafayette to the world! The Acadiana Regional Airport in New Iberia is approximately 20 miles south and provides regional leisure travel options on small planes and helicopters while airports serving private aircrafts are located in communities throughout the area.

There's an Amtrak station right in Lafayette and the famed Sunset Limited stops there on its ride across the country from Florida all the way to California. Greyhound has a fully staffed, 24 hour depot in downtown Lafayette and there are several taxi, limousine and shuttle services so getting into and around region is never a stressful experience.

There are 6 ports in the area including the Port of Iberia, Port of West St. Mary, Port of Vermilion and Intracoastal City. Those ports interconnect with the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway creating a web of water highways that rival those on land.

BRIEF HISTORY
The Cajuns of the southwest Louisiana Prairie are descendants of the French who settled Acadia in Canada during the seventeenth century. Isolated from and neglected by both France and Canada, the Acadians developed a tightly knit culture based on the interdependence of families and family members. They learned from their neighbors, the Micmac Indians, not only how to survive the rigors of the Acadian wilderness but to prosper in the process.

At the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded Acadia to England, who renamed it, Nova Scotia, making the Acadians subjects of England. However, the Acadians refused to take an unconditional oath of allegiance to England and insisted on being granted neutral status, as well as on retaining their Roman Catholic religious beliefs, which caused them to be persecuted.

When the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, the Acadians were compelled to take the oath of allegiance or be expelled. Instead of submitting to English rule and renouncing their Catholic faith, they were forced into exile and their homes and farms were burned. So began "Le Grand Derangement" in 1755 when the Acadians were forced aboard crowded English vessels with only clothing and bare necessities and sent to far flung colonies. Many families became separated and more than half died along the journey.

By the end of the war in 1763, the Acadians had made their way to Louisiana where they rejected land near the settled regions along the Mississippi River and deliberately sought out a more isolated area where they could preserve their culture. They found their new Acadia in the isolation of the moss-draped swamps of the Atchafalaya basin and in the Opelousas prairie. Over the next century and a half, they would use this isolation to maintain their way of life, with God and family at the center of their culture.

African culture has also imbued the history of Acadiana and many Africans originally came to Louisiana as slaves during the second decade of the eighteenth century. Slaves continued to be brought to Louisiana throughout the 1700s, most victims of either wars or slave raiding parties originating in the area known as the Gold Coast of Africa in the triangle formed by the Niger River and the Atlantic. Among the tribes that were victims of slave raids were the Senegalese, the Gambians, the Bambara, and Poulard, and the Congo.

The Louisiana experience differs markedly from that of Africans in the English colonies. Beginning with the Code Noire promulgated in 1724, it was possible for slaves to win their freedom in both French and Spanish Louisiana with much more ease than was possible in the English colonies of North America. Not only could they win their freedom, but they also were granted all the privileges of citizenship "as though they had been born free." Consequently, people of African ancestry in Louisiana made up two of the classes in Louisiana's three-caste socio-economic system.

The first class was the Caucasian group, the second class was free blacks and free persons of color, those of mixed racial ancestry and the third class were slaves. In Louisiana, the second class was composed of approximately 80 percent free persons of color and 20 percent free blacks while the slave class was approximately 80 percent black and 20 percent persons of mixed racial ancestry.

Louisiana's African population played an extremely important role in the development of Louisiana folklore, including oral traditions like storytelling, craft traditions like split oak baskets as well as music traditions like Zydeco. Even the word gumbo comes from the African word for okra.

Although there have been Germans in Louisiana since colonial times, the Germans of the southwest prairie around Robert's Cove, sometimes called German Cove, are relative newcomers. In the 1870s, Otto von Bismark, chancellor of the newly united Germany, began what he called a war of culture against the Catholic Church in Germany, including a variety of measures that put religious institutions under government control. In addition, under a military conscription law, German males were drafted for a 20-year period within an army in which the Catholic faith would be suppressed.

One group of German Catholics, led by a Benedictine priest, Father Thevis, left Germany, moving first to Indiana and then to Louisiana when Father Thevis was directed to establish a monastery in the state. He led his group to the Robert's Cove area where they worked to preserve their German culture. Although they had to learn English to communicate with their neighbors in Rayne and Crowley, they continued to teach their children German as a first language. A German school continued in existence until the 1920s, when a concerted effort was made to eliminate all languages except English from Louisiana schools. The German contribution to the culture can be found in the farming techniques, the annual celebrations like St. Nicholas Day and the Oktoberfest in Robert's Cove and in various cooking traditions.

The three groups have melded together to create a culture and a sense of place that is unlike anywhere else on earth. The Acadiana region, so rich in history and scenic beauty is place where the past remains alive in the present.

ABOUT EDUCATION
Education is a valued part of life in the region and towns pride themselves on the quality of their public schools. Additionally, there are many private elementary and secondary schools, with a particularly fine system of Catholic schools that include religious instruction along with rigorous academics.

The most prominent institution of higher learning in Acadiana is the University of Louisiana Lafayette with an enrollment of 17,000 students from 75 countries. UL Lafayette offers 115 undergraduate degree programs and 28 masters' degree programs on the main 137-acre campus famous for its scenic beauty and acorn grove. The university has a 600-acre farm/renewable resources laboratory with a 30-acre pond for crawfish and catfish culture in Cade, LA as well as the 48-acre New Iberia Research Center in New Iberia, LA, which is one of the largest private primate breeding colonies in the world.

The schools of biology, cognitive science, Francophone studies, computer science and computer engineering are particularly acclaimed and the degrees they grant are highly prized. In athletics, Louisiana's Ragin Cajuns and their feminine counterparts the Lady Cajuns, compete in NCAA Division 1, the highest level of Collegiate Athletics in nine sports.

Tuition and fees are very reasonable for a school of its caliber. Undergraduate, full-time tuition for in-state residents is currently $1,614 per year and the UL Lafayette is included in the 2005 edition of The Best 357 Colleges guide published by the Princeton Review. The university's MBA program is included in the 2005 edition of The Princeton Review's Best 143 Business Schools and the university will be featured in the 2006 edition of America's Best Value Colleges, a Princeton Review college guidebook that will include fewer than 100 schools in the whole country.

Other important universities in the region include Southern University and A & M College, 60 miles away in Baton Rouge and renowned Tulane University in New Orleans 125 miles away. Smaller universities and community colleges include the South Louisiana Community College in New Iberia, Nicolls State University in Thibodaux and the Louisiana State University Campus in Eunice. McNeese State University is located in Lake Charles and the Louisiana Technical College has five campuses throughout the region.

About the Lafayette Parish, Broussard, Youngsville, Scott, Carencro and Acadiana area, Louisiana Area

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