Good Pine, LA

Good Pine is a La Salle Parish census-designated community just west-northwest of Jena, first counted separately in the 2020 census with 259 residents. Its name carries the memory of the early twentieth-century lumber boom: the Good Pine Lumber Company Building, put up in 1906, served as headquarters for the Good Pine and Tall Timber companies. The Good Pine mill burned in 1935, Tall Timber’s mill was dismantled in 1941, and most of the physical industry disappeared as the timber was cut.

That history is still visible in two historic buildings. The former company headquarters is now associated with the La Salle Parish Museum, and the Trout-Good Pine School, built in 1938, remains another marker of the company-era settlement. Good Pine is increasingly folded into nearby Jena as annexation reaches the community, yet the old office and school keep the lumber-town map legible: Bradford Street, workers’ homes, and the pine country around the parish seat. The pine woods remain part of the surrounding landscape.