Garyville, LA

Garyville sits along the east bank of the Mississippi River in St. John the Baptist Parish, about midway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Home to around 2,100 people, it is a small River Parish community closely tied to the local energy industry. Long before modern plants arrived along the water, Garyville started in 1903 as a planned company town for the Lyon Cypress Lumber Company, built with worker cottages, rail access, and a busy sawmill.

You can still see that early-twentieth-century character when you turn off River Road into the historic district, where vintage cypress houses and the local timber museum preserve its logging heritage. Framed by sugarcane fields, the river levee, and sprawling refinery grounds, Garyville offers a quiet, unpretentious place to live with an easy commute to major industrial employers along the river corridor.