Leonville, LA

Leonville is a St. Landry Parish town along Bayou Teche, with its name tied to Father Leon Mailluchet, the priest who built the first church there in 1898. The settlement grew around free people of color living along the bayou, and St. Leo’s Catholic Church still gives the center of town its strongest landmark. Leonville sits on the edge of Opelousas, but its local map follows the water: Bayou Teche, the church, and the long corridor used today by the Bayou Teche National Water Trail. The town’s story is small in scale and specific in texture, with a church name, a bayou route, and a community shaped by its early residents.