Opelousas Firsts and Famous / Hall of Fame

One Opelousas name from the hall of fame is Tony Chachere, born here in 1905. At thirty he started a drug wholesale company with $100, made products such as Mamou Cough Syrup, retired at fifty, sold insurance for thirteen years and retired again. His 1972 Cajun Country Cookbook printed the recipe for Original Creole Seasoning, and the book's success led him to found Tony Chachere's Creole Foods. A week before he died in 1995 he became the first inductee of the Louisiana Chefs Hall of Fame. Opelousas now bills itself the spice capital of the world.

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

• J.S. Clark High School — steps away
• Rodney Milburn — steps away
• The Opelousas Post Militia of 1779 — steps away
• La Chapelle House — steps away