| Friends in St. Francisville, La. Blog |
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The following press releases are arranged by the newest on top to the oldest on the bottom. Some articles are from prior years. While the dates are not representative of the current year the information is still similar.
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Every Southern Porch Needs a Dog, and St. Francisville’s Bo Bryant Shelter Has Just The Right One For You
By Anne Butler
Prior to 2012, the dog pound in St. Francisville consisted of a few makeshift pens attached to the parish jail, where the two-legged inmates had sentences considerably shorter than the four-legged ones who were pretty much on death row. A mere 5%-10% of the impounded animals were adopted out, most of those thanks to the efforts of a retired state trooper turned sheriff’s deputy, the late Bo Bryant; the rest met a sadder fate.
Help for homeless animals has come a long way since then. Just ask Hershey. Full Story... |
ST. FRANCISVILLE COMMEMORATES CIVIL WAR SESQUICENTENNIAL IN A DIFFERENT WAY
By Anne Butler
As communities across the country mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the observance in the quaint little rivertown of St. Francisville, LA, will not celebrate a victory in battle or commemorate a heart-wrenching defeat. Rather, St. Francisville’s observation of events 150 years past preserves a moment of civility in the midst of a bloody war, and the bonds of brotherhood that proved stronger even than the divisiveness of a bitter civil conflict pitting brother against brother. St. Francisville’s observance June 7, 8 and 9th is called The Day The War Stopped, and that is exactly what happened, at least for a little while.
Full Story |
ST. FRANCISVILLE CELEBRATES SPRING WITH GARDENS, RODEOS, AND A COUPLE OF JOURNEYS HOME
By Anne Butler
Like every clever, creative kid who has ever felt stifled and suffocated by the confines of a small town, Rod Dreher couldn’t wait to hightail it to the big city from tiny St. Francisville (population maybe 1700, give or take a few) and the even tinier neighboring Starhill community where his family lived. A couple of years away at the state high school for gifted students, followed by college and high-profile careers in print from D.C. and Dallas to Miami, from New York and a ringside seat for 9-11 to Philadelphia, provided the distance and differing perspective to more fully appreciate what he had left behind.
Full Story |
ST. FRANCISVILLE CELEBRATES SPRING WITH AUDUBON PILGRIMAGE
By Anne Butler
The forty-second annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 15, 16 and 17, 2013, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For over four decades the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to commemorate artist-naturalist John James Audubon’s stay as he painted a number of his famous bird folios and tutored young Eliza Pirrie of Oakley.
Full Story |
ST. FRANCISVILLE CELEBRATES ITS GLORIOUS GARDENS AND GROWING ART SCENE
By Anne Butler
In 1831 the Encyclopaedia Americana called St. Francisville and the surrounding District of Nueva Feliciana “the garden of Louisiana,” and always it was so. Across the verdant hills and well-watered forests Mother Nature spared no effort in strewing a wonderful wealth of wildflowers to brighten this garden spot long before the earliest settlers arrived. The first cultivated gardens were practical affairs of vegetables and herbs, with greenhouses to extend growing seasons to feed the early families as well as their livestock. Once these planter families prospered from cash crops of indigo, cotton and sugarcane, they could turn their attention from the pragmatic to..
Full Story |
ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA: PRESERVING ITS SENSE OF PLACE ON TAPE
By Anne Butler
 St. Francisville, if you take the time to look, seems like a little Louisiana town that has it all, and in many ways it does. Its congenial mix of residential and commercial and governmental structures assures a lively presence downtown 24 hours daily, and when the shops and offices close for the evening, the bricked sidewalks come alive with joggers and dog-walkers and neighbors chatting with porch-swingers across tidy white picket fences. It has been called, without much exaggeration, the town that’s two miles long and two yards wide, for its National Register historic district straddles a high narrow ridge overlooking the Mississippi River, its location keeping it safe from floodwaters and also safe from inappropriate modern development for which there simply is no room.
Full Story |
ST. FRANCISVILLE: VOLUNTEERS PITCH IN
by Anne Butler
 On Saturday, February 9, 1907, St. Francisville’s little local newspaper, The True Democrat, carried the horrifying news: “The Julius Freyhan High School building burned to the ground last night. Fire caught most likely in the basement as the flames burst forth from the interior without warning about seven o’clock, and had gained such headway that it was impossible to make even an attempt to save the building. The efforts of the hose companies and of citizens generally were directed towards saving the adjacent buildings. It was a providential circumstance that there was no wind or very much more property would have been destroyed as the heart of the residence district was threatened.”
Full Story |
SUMMER OF DRAMA IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
by Anne Butler
 When that great American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum brought his dramatic troupe to St. Francisville in 1838, he was at the height of an exuberant career exhibiting freaks and frauds, Fee-Gee Mermaids and Siamese twins, giants and midgets and everything in between, in various museums and theatrical settings; it was only fairly late in his life that he founded what would become the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Full Story |
 MUSTARD GREEN QUEEN’S MEALS MARK THE MILESTONES OF LIFE IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
By Anne Butler
Photos by Henry Cancienner
Every little town has one, that dependably generous soul who never says no and thus may be found laboring behind the scenes over a hot stove or flaming grill at every fundraiser, every church dinner, every charitable event. St. Francisville has over the years been fortunate enough to have had a number of these unsung heroes, and one of them is finally getting her due. Full Story |
APPROACH TO NEW AUDUBON BRIDGE BETWEEN ST. FRANCISVILLE AND NEW ROADS SALUTES TWO GENERALS
by Anne Butler
 The historic little towns of St. Francisville and New Roads have been separated over the years by many factors: cultural and linguistic differences, landscape and crop differences, and even by the mighty Mississippi River. New Roads was French, flat, sugarcane fields. St. Francisville was traditionally Anglo, hilly, with cotton the main cash crop of the 19th century.
And yet, over the years, the two communities have been inextricably bound together as well, beginning in the late 1800s when Capuchin monks from flood-prone Catholic Pointe Coupee had to cross the river to the high bluffs of St. Francisville to bury their dead. Now a beautiful new bridge, the country’s longest cable-stayed structure,
Full Story |
Plantation Country Romance: February in St. Francisville is for Lovers
By Anne Butler
 When Martha Barrow of Highland Plantation returned to the St. Francisville area after completing her education at Madame Legoin’s fashionable educational institute in Philadelphia, she was 18 and in the sweet bloom of youth. She quickly caught the eye of handsome planter Daniel Turnbull, ten years her senior. Writing of the relationship some years hence, one of their granddaughters would say, “A mutual romance immediately commenced, little Cupid cast his darts and their hearts that instant caught the sunshine they through life had sought.” They were joined in matrimony in 1828 and their descendants for generations would occupy their magnificent home called Rosedown, now a state historic site where the wedding of the Turnbull’s daughter Sarah is regularly reenacted. |
Early Travels to St. Francisville, LA, Led to Some Lurid Descriptions
 by Anne Butler
The four-laning of US Highway 61 and the new Mississippi River Bridge make it easy to reach St. Francisville these days, but in the 19th century, travels to this picturesque little Mississippi River village were fraught with perils and gave rise to some spectacularly gruesome newspaper dispatches.
In February, as the West Feliciana Historical Society museum, on Ferdinand St. in St. Francisville, hosts the travelling Smithsonian Institute exhibit called Journey Stories, the focus is on who we are and how we got here. St. Francisville and its now-vanished sister city Bayou Sara beneath the bluffs have got some fascinating tales to tell in this regard.
Full Article |
CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
by Anne Butler
Christmas in St. Francisville, historically the commercial center of surrounding English Louisiana cotton plantations, has always been a magical time. In the 19th century, country folks from miles around would pile into wagons to do their weekly shopping in the little town’s dry-goods emporiums that offered everything from buggies to coffins, gents’ fine furnishings and ladies’ millinery. And at Christmas time, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.
Full Article |
St. Francisville, LA, Anticipates Sharing its Journey Stories
by Anne Butler
 The Thanksgiving season is often a time of homecoming---going back to Grandma’s, where the roast turkey is stuffed with nostalgia and seasoned with stories---a time of sharing family histories and tall tales of the often treacherous travels our ancestors undertook to claim lands and establish new lives in a new country. How appropriate, then, for St. Francisville to now be making preparations to host the travelling Smithsonian Institution exhibit called Journey Stories, which opens the first week in February in the West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum/visitor center on Ferdinand Street right in the heart of St. Francisville’s National Register Historic District.
Full Article |
FALL IS WELCOMED WITH OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
by Anne Butler
 Fall in the Feliciana hills brings fabulous autumn color to the woodlands and perfect cool temperatures for the outdoor activities that attract so many visitors to the area throughout October. Active individuals find this month ideal for hiking in the rugged Tunica Hills, once the snakes and poison ivy have retreated and the falling leaves open up scenic vistas not noticeable in the lush overgrowth of summer. Several state wildlife management areas, Clark Creek Natural Area with its rare waterfalls, Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge, and the Mary Ann Brown Nature Preserve offer hiking trails ranging from family-friendly Sunday strolls to challenging hills and steep hollows.
Full Article |
UNIQUE WILDLIFE REFUGE IN ST. FRANCISVILLE AREA
by Anne Butler
 Slipping through the silent waters in a kayak or canoe, shaded by immense old-growth cypress trees draped with Spanish moss and wild vines, it’s hard to realize that this is in West Feliciana Parish, better known for its steep wooded hills than for the alligator- infested swamps of more coastal Louisiana. But then Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge near St. Francisville is a unique habitat area, and it certainly provides some unique recreational opportunities. Full Article |
| Above articles are available for press/promotional use only. High resolution photographs to accompany these articles are available by request. Contact Patrick Walsh by
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or calling (800) 488-6502 |
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