Laplace

Before the depot there was Karlstein, a name used both for the German settlements along this stretch of the Mississippi and for the land granted to Charles Frederick d'Arensbourg, who led the German Coast for more than 55 years. Early settlers also called the area Bonnet Carré, for the square bend in the river. The modern name came in 1883, when the New Orleans and Baton Rouge Railroad crossed the plantation of Basile Laplace, a pharmacist and planter who had moved from New Orleans in 1879. The depot took his name, then the post office, then the town.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Whitney Plantation — 9.3 mi
  A museum on a former sugar plantation along the River Road that tells its story through the people who were enslaved there, with memorials to 107,000 enslaved Louisianans and 2,200 children.
• Destrehan Plantation — 12 mi
  A River Road house begun in 1787 where, in January 1811, a tribunal of five slaveholders tried people who had risen on the German Coast, and where an exhibit now tells the revolt.
• Tickfaw State Park — 23 mi
  A floodplain park on the Tickfaw River, with cypress-tupelo swamp, bottomland hardwoods and about 4.75 miles of trails and boardwalks, plus a nature center with an 800-gallon river aquarium.
• Laurel Valley Village — 26 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.

More markers nearby

• A. Montz — 1.0 mi
• Woodland Plantation — 1.2 mi
• Welcome To Main Street Park — 1.2 mi
• 1811 Kid Ory Historic House — 1.3 mi