Louisiana Orphan Train Museum

The first train reached Opelousas in early April 1907 with roughly 56 to 67 children. Father John Engberink of St. Landry Church had arranged it with the Sisters of Charity of the New York Foundling Hospital after asking his parishioners from the pulpit to apply for a child. At the Southern Pacific depot he stood on a platform and called out numbers pinned to the children, each matched to a waiting family, and the handing over lasted until the next morning. Foster parents had to be married Catholics, and a hospital representative checked each home every year.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — steps away
  A heritage park in Opelousas built around the Venus House of about 1791, the home of a free Creole woman of color, Marie Francois Venus, with an old schoolhouse, Methodist church and the visitor center's zydeco music exhibit.
• 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.
• Vermilionville — 22 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.
• Atchafalaya Welcome Center — 25 mi
  A state welcome center inside the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp, with exhibits on Basin history and life, a film, a crawfishing boat and French-speaking staff.

More markers nearby

• La Chapelle House — steps away
• Mary Jane Steam Engine Train — steps away
• J.S. Clark High School — steps away
• Rodney Milburn — steps away