Ventress, LA

At the northeastern end of False River, Ventress is a Pointe Coupee Parish CDP shaped more by water and parish roads than by a municipal street grid. The 2020 Census counted 800 people. False River is an oxbow lake with a long shoreline history, and the parish's name comes from the French phrase la pointe coupee, or the place of the cut-off. Ventress remains one of the unincorporated communities that fill in the spaces between New Roads, Livonia, and the river settlements.

The place's most recognizable civic marker is the Hunter Fabre Post 248 American Legion Hall on Legion Road. Around it, the larger Pointe Coupee story comes into view: French colonial families settled along False River, later generations built homes and farms around the water, and the parish developed a culture shaped by Native, French, African, and Caribbean influences. Ventress is the kind of Louisiana place where the name on the map is small, but the water beside it opens into a much older landscape.