Mary Jane Steam Engine Train

The Mary Jane came from Davenport, Iowa, where a firm formed in 1901 as the W W Whitehead Company took the name Davenport Locomotive Works in 1904 and had built light locomotives since 1902. The company later made gasoline and diesel engines, supplied trench-railway locomotives to the Army in the First World War, and was bought by the Canadian Locomotive Company in 1955. It was closed in 1956. An engine dated about 1904 therefore comes from the earliest years of a builder whose name vanished within two generations.

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

• Louisiana Orphan Train Museum — steps away
• La Chapelle House — steps away
• Opelousas Firsts and Famous / Hall of Fame — steps away
• J.S. Clark High School — steps away