Port Barre

In 1765 Jacques Courtableau, a landowner, granted land to 32 Acadian immigrants and sold Charles Barre a large parcel that included the old trading post. The town is named for Alex Charles Barre, who lived from 1746 to 1829, and the Barre, Nezat and Roy families, intermarried, ran a goods-handling business that carried the landing through the 1800s. The Opelousa people had asked the French government for traders as early as December 11, 1738. The village was incorporated in 1898.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 6.4 mi
  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.
• Atchafalaya Welcome Center — 20 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.
• Vermilionville — 23 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.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• Bayou Courtableau at Bayou Teche Headwaters — 1.1 mi
• The Opelousas Post Militia of 1779 — 6.4 mi
• Rodney Milburn — 6.4 mi
• Opelousas Firsts and Famous / Hall of Fame — 6.4 mi