• St. Francisville

    Your Invitation...to experience our southern hospitality as you explore our quaint small town, admire our breathtaking scenery, fantastic shopping and much more! Whether you're coming for history, shopping or the outdoors, find what you're looking for in West Feliciana Parish.
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St. Francisville's Amazing Grace

St. Francisville’s Amazing Grace
By Anne Butler


graceSt. Francisville is a beautiful little island of English reserve and decorum in the midst of a state filled with Mardi Gras madness and Catholic confessions. It’s not French. It’s not Creole. It’s not Cajun. So it’s no wonder that the early church in St. Francisville proper, claimed by the French and settled under Spanish rule, would actually be Episcopal, Anglican Protestant to the core.

The area’s Anglo settlers in the opening years of the 1800s established extensive agricultural properties, planting first indigo and then cotton and cane. As they prospered, they chafed under what they considered corrupt Spanish rule even after the Louisiana Purchase. In the fall of 1810 they threw out the Spanish and audaciously established an independent republic, which lasted a grand total of 74 days before the area was added to the United States.

By 1827 a number of the St. Francisville area’s most prominent residents, feeling the need for organized religious guidance, came together to draft a resolution to establish an Episcopal church, which would be the second one in the state. Some had been leaders of the West Florida Rebellion; even more were just a generation down from the Revolutionary War, their fathers having participated as Tories supporting the English or fighting for independence with George Washington on the American side, and a few were even Quakers. Now they would all come together as staunch Episcopalians.

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Wedding Bells Ring in St. Francisville, La.

Wedding Bells Ring in St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

weddingDreaming of a destination wedding? There’s no need to travel too far away; St. Francisville offers all the conveniences of home, but guarantees you’ll feel a million miles away.
Back in the day, weddings were mostly formal affairs, held in churches with elaborate floral arrangements and guests dressed fit to kill, the bride wearing white and her attendants in outfits that would never come out of the closet again. That was then.

This is now: Many ceremonies these days are second (or maybe even third) weddings, the couples having been there and done that formally the first time. It’s not their first rodeo, and they want something casual, more relaxed, hopefully even enjoyable this time around.

Destination weddings at the beach or on a mountaintop in Colorado, the bride barefoot in the sand in a billowing maxi dress or wearing hiking boots clutching a bouquet of wildflowers, have become the “in” thing, and St. Francisville has become one of the state’s most popular wedding destinations.

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Carl the Roving Ram Cuts Up in St. Francisville, LA

Carl the Roving Ram Cuts Up in St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

carlSometimes in the country you’ve got to make your own fun, and little St. Francisville, full as it is of creative souls, sure knows how to do that.

Take Carl. Poor Carl. He was a regal Dall Sheep, inhabitant of the alpine ridges and steep slopes of the frozen Yukon Territory and Alaska, cavorting among the rocky crags in death-defying feats of agility. Carl had thick curling horns and must have presented a tempting target for the trophy hunter who apparently took him down and then took him to a taxidermist to be stuffed. A fine trophy, indeed.

So how did Carl end up climbing mountains of junk instead of Northwest Territory mountainsides? Even Bubba, the proprietor of the popular flea market on Commerce St. in St. Francisville, can’t remember where Carl came from or who brought him in, although you’d think he’d have made an impression (not every day do you get a stuffed goat). But Bubba has such a passion for used treasures that his wares overflow his crowded house and spill out into the yard; he can’t possibly remember everything.

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Post-Bellum Sanctuary and Salvation: the Old Benevolent Society in St. Francisville

front with markerPost-Bellum Sanctuary and Salvation: the Old Benevolent Society in St. Francisville
By Anne Butler

February is Black History Month, so it’s only right that a little neglected structure in the middle of St. Francisville should be getting increased attention.

The St. Francisville area has been fortunate to retain a number of restored plantation homes that welcome visitors with an impressive picture of life as it was for the upper echelon of antebellum society in the South. But other structures---smaller, simpler---speak in quieter tones to teach a history lesson no less significant.

One such structure is the tiny Old Benevolent Society. Its small green historic marker designates this unassuming wood-frame shotgun house as the oldest black burial lodge in the parish. It was founded in 1883 by a gentleman of color whose grandson would more than a century later become president of the parish police jury.

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