Louisiana Frog Company

NASA launched the Orbiting Frog Otolith from Wallops Island on November 9, 1970, to learn whether the inner-ear organ that senses balance adapts to weightlessness. Of twenty bullfrogs sent from Rayne, four were chosen, and two, Pierre and Tee-Nom, flew while two stood by. Their hearts stayed healthy, and the balance responses that wavered early returned to normal in the last ten to twenty hours. The battery failed on the seventh day and the frogs died on November 15. The company had opened in Mermentau in 1931 and stopped shipping in 1973.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 16 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 21 mi
  A National Park Service center in Eunice on the Cajun prairie, with exhibits on the Acadians who settled the prairies, a Courir de Mardi Gras display, free music and cooking demonstrations, and the shuttered Liberty Theatre nearby.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 22 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Louisiana Oil and Gas Park — 24 mi
  The roadside park at Jennings where Louisiana's oil industry began in 1901, with a replica derrick, a pioneers' plaque and Gator Chateau.

More markers nearby

• St. Joseph's Catholic Church & Cemetery — steps away
• Pouppeville — 0.3 mi
• Jacques Weil Company — 0.4 mi
• Rayne Depot Square — 0.4 mi